Holes and Poles

Ew yes I know it is gross but it is the offical name of my Tag Rugby team and unfortunately we are stuck with it for the rest of the season. Anyways! So my friend Arron (a.k.a Azza) has been playing Try Tag Rugby (or Oztag for those at home) in London since he arrived here last July and since then he has met lots of cool people and had a great time. He has slowly been recruiting his mates to join and have a bit of a run around and after much convincing from him, Vanessa and Shea - I decided to join the team.

I am fairly uncoordinated person in general and I haven't played a team sport in awhile but I was really looking forward to trying something new and meeting new people. It also gave me another reason to try and get a bit fitter. Before the season we had a bit of a 'pre match team meeting' which consisted of watching a game of tag, having a BBQ and ciders before a bit of a kick around. Apart from the basics I learnt that time I had no idea of how to play when I arrived on our first game. There were also four other newbies in our team and considering I barely even know the rules to rugby it was safe to say our first game was a bit of a mess. Somehow we still managed to win 10-3 and I even got a try! I was so surprised that I even managed to catch the ball let alone run across the line. My team even had to tell me to put the ball down because I didn't realise I had done it!

Since then we have had a pretty rocky season with several big defeats in a row. We had orginally submitted our team to the social grade but since Azza had played in the A grade for many seasons and we had four others who had played before they didn't think it was fair to put us in the social grade so we were bumped up to the A-grade. While we were gradually improving there were many of us that were still beginners which made it hard to match other A grade sides. I know it is not all about winning but when you are continually losing by big numbers you become frustrated and angry so there were a few weeks where the after game drinks were more consolatory then celebratory.

And there are ALWAYS drinks after the game. Across the road from the park we play in there is a cute little pub that gives us a plate of food when we arrive and are very patient when we rock up and order rounds and rounds of jugs and get a bit rowdy. There have actually been several nights that have gotten a little out of hand and the one pint turns into several jugs and rounds of shots. One night we even ended up having to get the night bus home - getting in the door at three A.M where as others all we can manage is a diet coke. This part of the night is half the reason it is so much fun to get out out there and be social. I have made some really good friends from this little group of people and I look forward to playing every week.

Since our first little rocky patch we have improved over the season and we slowly got our rhythm and it become a lot more fun with even a few wins towards the end of the season! We have entered into a new season which starts this week so hopefully we can continue on our winning streak!