Rugby 2

Here's how I'm going to be doing this. Obviously, rugby will be very important to me from now on since I've decided to join the team and all. If you want regular posts, I'll still do those, but rugby has the potential to be my main topic from now on. I'll keep the titles as Rugby followed by a number. If it's a game, I'll follow that by a dash and "Mizzou v ___" or "___ v. Mizzou" depending on who is home.

Summary of Saturday's clinic: We did drills for an hour and a half before finally taking a water break. I think about half the people there got dehydrated - I know I did. I also got a minor concussion and took a few balls to the stomach (some people have bad aim...or I ran faster than they were expecting) and have a few bruises on my right arm. Oh, and I'm still pretty red and my face is peeling and I look lovely. Especially right now since I haven't put lotion on in a few hours. Nice. I didn't scrimmage b/c I felt like crap. I got the concussion, sat out for a couple of minutes, got back up, got in the drill and took a ball to the stomach. Excellent. We do a few more drills then go to lunch. I decide I'm fine to keep playing, and a few other veterans are like "ehhh....ok...." (one's majoring in physical therapy...she said I was fine but recommended that I sit out). Not long after we get back we start these weird running drills where we're just constantly running. It's 1pm and it's hot. We do that for about 30 minutes, non-stop. We get water. We go back and we start doing one-on-one tackling drills. That's when the headache hit and I just backed off after that. Drank 2 liters of water, didn't pee (yeah, that's called dehydration). Still had a headache. Got up, walked around, tried a few drills, still had a headache. Then they decide it's time to scrimmage. I sit out. By now one of our coaches(/player? not too sure yet) has called it quits too so she and I walk up and down the sidelines, following the play and she explains anything I have questions on. A good day for rookies, a boring day for veterans.

Tuesday's practice was ok until we decided to do a skeleton scrimmage. A skeleton scrimmage is where the bare minimum of players is on the field. Usually about 15, which is really the size of only one team in an actual game. In practice (so far) we play two hand touch or if you hear a whistle, you have been tackled. So at first I was on defense. On defense you need to stay in a flat line so there are no gaps created so a runner can't get through. We couldn't do that. When we switched to offense, I was outside center. (Need a visual? Hit up wiki - just google "rugby positions") I was the third person to get the ball. The second person is the inside center and the first person is the flyhalf. The centers rotate around the flyhalf who directs the plays. There are two wings who stay on their sides. We ended up being to the left of the flyhalf most of the time. The flyhalf and the wing on the left side were veterans and but the rest of us were rookies. I was the only rookie who attended the clinic on the line so the others kind of had no idea what they were doing. This was very evident when the inside center decided to play more where the outside center should. When the wing would tell her to move, she would get so close and so flat that the flyhalf would complain and she would move back so she was almost next to me. I'm not sure what she thinks she was doing, but she made me so frustrated. We could not move the ball forward at all b/c she would be so close to the flyhalf that we would have a forward pass which is illegal or she would be so far away the flyhalf could barely get the ball to her (or she was terrible at catching). I ended up taking the ball at one point and the wing and I kept tossing the ball back and forth to help move it forward. Wings don't do that. They're supposed to be given the ball when the defense has been drawn away from them. Wings just get the ball and sprint up the field. That's it. They catch, they aren't supposed to throw. But we did and it was the most our team moved the ball. Grah, it was so frustrating, I can't explain. And if I tried to take her spot b/c she would be where I was supposed to be she would yell at me, "You're supposed to be on the other side of me." "You're supposed to more over here, get here and I'll move back there."

Ok, I'm done ranting. It was a crappy practice, but now I know who I can't work with. It's unfortunate b/c when she's not in "game," that girl is good at catching and throwing and working on a team and moving around, adjusting to the situation. She's just not good there. Tomorrow will be better. We're supposed to start actually tackling each other in game now.