Did you know the rugby world cup is happening right now in France? From the amount of coverage I've seen, you'd be hard pressed to find any news.
And that's a huge shame. A whole group of men in Canada — all the players on the team, the coaches, trainers, etc. and the thousand-fold more who have tried to make the team and play in leagues across the country — play rugby with passion in Canada. They love the game. They train year-round for its pounding. They gather on Saturdays and perform the strange rituals of their game. And no one really takes notice.
Because we're amateurs in every sense of the word at the game. If this were ice hockey, we'd be Germany. Not a top-flight team. Not Russia or Sweden. But a game team, ready to upset a contender, defensive-minded and tough, unskilled, on the outside looking in. In short, very hard to play against but very beatable.
The Canadians have played two games in the world cup thus far and have two losses, to Wales and to Fiji. Their remaining games are against Japan, a minnow like Canada, and Australia, one of the top teams in the world. My brother has been in France for the past 2 weeks watching the games and will be at the Canada-Japan game. Cheer hard!
Now go and watch this ad called Of This Earth for Adidas in New Zealand and you will understand a little more about what rugby means to those 3 million people, just as hockey lives in myth to Canada's 30 million people.
Posted by James Sherrett at September 21, 2007 08:12 PMWhat sort of update would you like?
Saw the South Africa vs Tonga game from Ireland today, awesome performance from Tonga, South Africa barley won, had to come from behind in the last minutes.
Ireland France last night, nothing could be better than watching from a pub in Ireland with a pint of Guiness in hand. To bad about the loss, but a couple more pints made it all okay.
Back to France to see Canada play Japan and then Australia,
Go Canada Go