Rugby Français

Observations on playing a foreign game in a foreign land.

When I arrive at the field, it is normally dark. It is quite a process to get to training as the club and training field is inside a large metropolis. The traffic is usually very bad as it is just the time when many are leaving work or venturing out for dinner or drinks. After taking the bus from my apartment, I hop on the metro to the stop nearest to the small stadium that serves a gathering point for many amateur sports enthusiasts in the city. The return home is especially difficult after a full day’s work and a two hour training session. But it’s worth it.

I love the game even if I’m not an expert. Most of the guys in the club have played since they were in grade school. The game is intuitive for them. I understand the basic concepts and its rules. But it still has been a steep learning curve. Having not played for ten years (and only two and half seasons at that) will do that to you.

It’s a foreign game to most Americans. There are movements afoot to bring it back into popularity. But as much as I love the game and I know there are small pockets America that do as well, I do not see rugby gaining popularity equal to America’s traditional pastimes — baseball, football, and basketball. It will be a long haul to bring rugby back into the limelight. I digress.

For right now — for me — it’s enough to be able to play the game again. Everywhere I have been stationed I have searched for a club. It is a rare thing to find a club in the US that is active and also close to home. The exclusivity of playing a game that many do not know or are too scared to try has drawn me in since the beginning.

I have also found that difficult circumstances generally tend to draw people together. Combat, like rugby is a game that can bind teammates together. The team camaraderie that a game generates is infectious. The mental and physical barriers we encounter on the field can be overcome by the almost constant support we must provide each other to move the ball down the field despite it moving backwards almost all the time. And, naturally, it is “as much fun one can have with clothes on” as they say.

I didn’t play football in high school or college. Although most of my French teammates assume that did. I am generally taller and carry more muscle on my frame than the average French player that I’ve encountered. And they are genuinely surprised when I tell them I have played before. This may not be apparent from their point of view as many a time I’ve felt lost on the field. This, however, has come from learning a new position.

When I was just starting out in rugby, I played on the wing. I later moved inward to be one of the backline centers. Spending a lot of time in the back row makes you think more. There are combinations to memorize, gaps to shoot, and defenses to analyze.

Since starting to play with the French, I have moved to the forwards — les gros as they would say. When playing in the forwards, there is no thinking, only moving forward and hitting other players to gain a few meters in order to move the ball out wide. After our last match, one of the back row players told me, “You think too much, just go straight.” I admitted that he was right and that I was looking for opportunity. I need to just keep it simple, stupid; opportunity will present itself in different ways than I had learned in my younger days.