Rugby and Rainbows

This weekend I went to a pub with some of Adam's co-workers. Adam was battling a cold, and now I am too.

Rugby is big here, like soccer is in Costa Rica, or like American football. We were watching the championship game of the Super 14. The Super 14 is a league of teams from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Rugby differs from most other sports because it is terribly brutal. The rugby players usually have fifty pounds on soccer player and lack all of the protective gear of American football players. I almost think Rugby players are even more brutal than boxers because there is a big pack of them which adds the herd mentality.

During the first play one player dove into another and a knee made contact with a head. These guys are huge and they move fast, really fast. Apparently Maori genetics create huge fast moving Rugby players (among other very nice people, I'm sure). The player, who crashed his head into a sprinting 250+ pound player, crashed to the ground and passed out face down in the grass. People were stepping on him and the play continued. When the play stopped (I still haven't figured out why the plays stop unless it involves a boundary) some other players just turned him over like a floppy doll. I'm thinking, hello, potential spinal injury don't move him! Parametics arrived and he finally came to and walked off the field. He looked amazingly terrible, was smiling and barely holding it together.

Rugby is the most brutal sport I've ever witnessed. I kept gasping and cringing while watching this game. The headlines in the next day was about the bar fight where the losers were partying. All Black drama of handbags at dawn.

But fortunately this cultural phenomenon is buffered. It is buffered by a beautiful, scenic, bubble wrap of scenery that surrounds the Auckland area and likely the entire country. This blog is going to be consumed by pretty scenic pictures. Fortunately there aren't any pretty pictures worth posting on Rugby players with cauliflower ear.