So Saturday really was the happy, happy, joy, joy day I was looking for. Here's some good news for you:
* I slept all Friday night. So what if John was bruised and battered when he woke up from my cold-induced night terrorizing. I. got. some. sleep!!!
* I felt better. Still not ready for anything too crazy, but feeling a lot more human.
* John and I went to our session with my awesome friend, Mary, who does prenatal massage and we learned a lot of fun couple massage stuff. Whoo-hoo!
* I think I have finally found a sport I enjoy watching on the tele.
* "God Save the Queen" was played in Croke Park and the country DID NOT IMPLODE like everyone seemed to expect it to.
So what the heck am I talking about??
Right now there is an international rugby tournament going on--the Six Nations (Ireland, Wales, Scotland, France, England, Italy). So some of the games had to be played in Ireland so it was, like, fair and stuff for all of the six nations. Weeeeeellllll. . . .the only stadium large enough in the country for something of this magnitude is Croke Park in Dublin, the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) stadium. So the powers the be wanted to play the rugby games for the Six Nations at Croke Park since they can pack in 86,000+ spectators.
This. is. a. big. deal.
Why, you ask?
Sparing all kinds of cultural stuff and history that I just don't know and don't know if I care to learn a lot about, here's the short version:
The Irish are really into Irish things. This probably has a lot to do with other countries meddling in their business and making Irish things illegal for the Irish (i.e. Catholicism, Gaelic sports, etc.) By the way, I know nothing about Gaelic sports (hurling, Gaelic football, etc.) but I wish I did because they are really interesting sports. Look up "hurling" when you have some spare time--it's fascinating!!! But back on track. . .
So while Ireland was under British rule, Gaelic sports were illegal.
Now "they" wanted to play rugby--a traditionally British sport--at the Gaelic Athletic Association, like, headquarters. This in itself was HUGE when they decided to allow rugby at Croke Park.
The first game there (Ireland v. France) came and went and things went fine. We lost that game, by the way.
And then it came time for England to play Ireland at Croke Park and everyone realized that--OMG!--they were going to play their national anthem or whatever: "God Save The Queen." This is the same tune as "Let Freedom Ring," by the way (I didn't know that). And I don't care about the chicken or the egg stuff--it's the same tune.
So for the last two weeks or so or even more (??) there has been massive hoopla about "should the allow England to play/sing "God Save the Queen"?" "Can they forbid it?" yadda. yadda. yadda.
Basically, there was tons of press about this. And yesterday was the game. And both countries played their national anthem. And Ireland did not implode. (Notice how I carefully avoided any reference to the word "explode"? Some people are not aware that Ireland is no longer full of bomb-wielding terrorists. You have to go abroad for that now. . . like, to England.)
The best part was when the game actually started and Ireland SPANKED England big-time. 43-13. And I actually watched the ENTIRE game. I don't know that I have watched any sport in its entirety EVER. Except maybe the Tour de France, but I used to get all kinds of geeky about that. Ever been in one of my yoga classes the morning of an interesting stage? Good, you would have hated me, aka Perky McGrew. "Let's do some more pushups and boat poses!!! Yeah!!!!! All right!!!!"
But back to rugby--and I'm talking rugby union, not league. We watched league while in China on the Aussie tele stations (am I cool enough to say "Aussie" or can only Aussies say that??) but it was not all that interesting.
Rugby is a very interesting and fast-paced sport. There are no commercial breaks and someone has to pretty much be dying on the field for the clock to stop. And it's only an 80-minute game. Yeah, the old attention span can handle that!
The players are mostly these massive, beastly, ogres of men in these crazy short shorts. Do they always wear white shorts? They get so. . . dirty!!
My favorite part of the game (besides the brutal, killer hitting where you think the man with the ball must have just died from impact) is when all the players jump on top of the ball and each other and you just. . .wait. . .until someone squeeezes the ball out from under everyone and it gets passed off the someone and play starts again. With all the men all piled up, it looks like a big, fat hen laying an egg.
So that's my theme on "why I like rugby". It's my new favorite sport. Except, of course, watching John play American football with all the Irish dudes out here.
Tomorrow is Fun Monday, so I get to talk about my blogging environment. See you then!
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11 comments:
Dear sabrina. Great post! Btw, you are cool enough to say Aussie. I can tell you are, cause only the uncool people spell is 'ozzie' - yik!
I hate rugby league. It's boring, it doesn't have the rucks (all the people squeezing the ball out) and mauls (the pack moving rather quickly with the ball until they fall over) or the scrums (10 members from each team crouch down and bash heads, someone throws the ball in the middle and they push) that rugby does. The World Cup is on in France this year, so there will be some good matches on the telly, and Mr Moi tells me Ireland is the hot northern hemisphere favourite to win. The southern hemisphere fave is the Noo Zulland All Blicks, I mean, Blacks.
You must watch some gaelic football when it's on. I haven't seen it but it's very similar to Aussie Rules, and that's a great sport to watch. Australia and Ireland play against each other in a combination of the two sports called 'international rules'.
Sorry about the long comment, I'm in a verbose mood tonight. See you on fun monday!
Little Miss! Wow! Thanks for the awesome comment! You totally know your sports, and I am envious! Mauls, rucks--I am glad to know the words now (scrum was easy to pick up). We're looking forward to following Ireland through all the tournaments this year--hopefully they will do well!
Thanks for the heads-up about the gaelic football/aussie rules--we'll keep an eye out.
PS: I have to say that Aussie television is da bomb! We watched tons of documentaries, reality shows, etc. when we were in China and loved it all! (Okay, so it was one of maybe 3 channels in English (familiar?) so that got us hooked easily!) Looking forward to Fun Monday!
Note to all: John has informed me that the reason the rugby matches (nope, they are not GAMES, but MATCHES) are being played at Croke Park because the big rugby stadium is being renovated.
I wonder what they had been doing in past years. . .now I know.
Holy crap, girl. I just learned about 15 things that I didn't know.
Who says blogging isn't educational?
Hi Sabrina, just enjoyed reading some of your back posts.
I've lived in Dublin for 12 1/2 years, I moved from England.
I managed to get through the last week with barely hearing about the rugby, I think I spend too much time blogging. I watched The Wind that Shakes the Barley on Saturday evening, full of the history between the Brits and Ireland and the civil war in Ireland. I recommend it for a history lesson of sorts.
I'll be back to check out your fun monday post.
I'm glad I 'm not a rugby fan as I would be lamenting England's spectacular defeaf. I think it was fitting that Ireland won (on this ocassion) given the history of Croke Park.
Jenny: I've never been into sports, so this is all new to me, too!
Beccy: Howdy, there! Thanks for the suggestion about the movie
Chris: Hi, there. Thanks for stopping by!!!
WOW! You are getting major traffic on your site! I am so happy you are feeling better and have found something to watch on TV. Miss you. See you in a couple weeks!
I agree with LMM, you are quite entitled to say Aussie. But alas, you've missed the International Rules series, it's played towards the end of the year.
Gaelic football and Aussie Rules (the colloquial term for AFL) are kind of similar except the Irish use a round ball and we use one like a gridiron ball. Go the 49ers!!! Plus AFL is much more physical (you can't tackle in Gaelic but you do in AFL).
Here's a bit of trivia for you, Irish dancing and Scottish dancing are almost the same except for the arms (Irish down, Scottish up) and of course the swords, and that all has to do with the English domination that you were talking about. While the British succeeded in making it illegal for the Irish to raise their arms while dancing (I'm not kidding), but the Scottish rebelled against it.
Aimee: I hope you survived TAKS week and the Oscars. Doing better over here--I can at least breathe 50% of the time! See you soon!!
WT: The dancing stuff really blows my mind. Good trivia. Maybe I should actually start learning about the history here. . .and I'm sure we'll catch plenty of the Gaelic and Aussie football as the year progresses. Oh, and my husband plays American football here with all the Irish. Too many sports, too little time!!!
The opening round of Six Nations fixtures certainly didn’t disappoint. We had a tense thriller (Ireland 16 – 11 Italy), a shocking upset (England 19 – 26 Wales) - which must have cost the bookies in Wales a few quid, seen as though the Welsh were massive underdogs and not forgetting that the Taffies like a bit of Rugby Betting UK. Then there were the brave Scots; who went down 27-6 to France. So many parts of Scotland’s game were working well and all three of the French tries came from schoolboy errors by the Scots... I hope their confidence is still in tact because they actually played really well.
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