RUGBY, THE SPORT OF KIWI’S
Mauls, Rucks, Blood, and Broken Cartilage
They take rugby seriously in New Zealand
The first time I ever saw a rugby game I was hitchhiking on New Zealand’s North Island.
Nice day, sunny — not hot.
The highway was empty. Rides weren’t coming. It looked liked I’d be out on the road for a long time.
Cars instead were pulling onto a nearby field, joining about 60 other cars to park in neat rows.
A crowd had gathered, watching some activity.
I couldn’t see past the crowd, but I could sense whatever activity it was, it could be friendly.
I reluctantly left the highway, walked across the field, joined the crowd, and put my backpack down.
In front of us were a group of men with legs and arms like tree trunks, all hugging each other. The men were bent over double.
Their fingers could have easily touched the ground if their arms weren’t wrapped around each other’s massive backs. The men pushed and strained until a ball popped out — a bleached-white football but with blunt ends.
One overly muscular man in shorts snatched the ball up on the run, and hurried down the field, followed by a dozen other galloping muscular men in shorts sounding like a stampeding bison herd, leaving one casualty on the ground in front of us.
He was dead.
He wasn’t moving.
Blood all down the side of his head.
I was concerned, but the casualty in front of us held no interest to the crowd watching the play — or the players — battling their war in shorts and long socks.
A whistle was called for a violation. An off pass, or someone touched the ball, or someone didn’t touch the ball, or something equally serious. In whatever game this was killing a man on the field didn’t break any rule.
As soon as the whistle was blown a couple of officials in T-shirt and shorts ran out with a green canvas stretcher with handles. The pair picked up the bloodied tripping hazard, loaded him on the stretcher and rushed him off the field.
No wonder stretchers are called a litter. In New Zealand rugby a wounded man became litter, like a discarded candy wrapper. I thought I saw him move, so he wasn’t dead, but no one seemed in the least concerned.
Play continued.
The play seemed to be much like our football, what I later learned the New Zealanders called gridiron.
The field was marked the same way. There were upright goal posts at either end of the field. That seemed to be where the players ran when they had the ball when they weren’t killing the odd player or huddling, pushing and straining against each other in what the Kiwi’s called a ruck or a maul.
There is a difference between a ruck and a maul, but what the difference was I couldn’t tell. Rucks and mauls were giant men pushing against each other as if the opposition were trees to knock over with your shoulders.
They pushed until distracted by a white blunt-end ball made from the hide of an albino hog. Then one of them ran with it, followed by giant men who wanted to turn him into litter.
In our football, players wear helmets like ancient Romans and shoulder armour that comes up to their ears. It all makes them look like giant Trojans fighting giant Spartans.
No padding for New Zealand rugby players.
No helmets.
No knee pads.
Bare legs, bare arms.
Players were all grit and muscle, thick shoulders, thick necks, giant legs, giant arms. New Zealand must clone their rugby players in a secret New Zealand muscle lab.
I later got a job as a barman in Wellington and on my first evening the bar television featured the New Zealand All Blacks — the national rugby team — playing Australia.
The bar was overcrowding.
I should’ve brought earplugs. I should’ve taped down all the glasses. Every time the All Blacks scored a roar went up. Windows rattled. Glasses danced precariously to the edges of their shelves. Lights above us waved as if there was an earthquake.
Years later, going through the sports pages, I read the New Zealand All Blacks visited the U.S. to play the United States national rugby team in Chicago. The All Blacks won, something like 82–6.
Reading the article, and having watched N.Z. rugby in New Zealand, I prayed all the American players survived.
Thanks for reading my story.
