Hooligans' Game ...

... played by gentlemen. I know for those who do not understand the game, this oft-used phrase to describe rugby, is somewhat perplexing. After all, it's a game that features team-mates grabbing each other by the crotch and head butting the opponents in a scrum. It's a game that permits bringing down another player who is in full flight by shackling his legs. Players emerge from a game with nicks, scratches, tears and even fractures, often bloodied. And to add to the machismo, in some cases, the play continues even when some player is down and out and receiving treatment on the pitch.

All I can say to these not unfounded notions of the game is to watch one, especially a world class one. Watch the hooker who is right in the middle of the scrum. Watch the scrum half direct the play. Watch the wingers sprint to touch... And most of all watch the fly half who kicks the ball impossibly accurately into goal.

So what is gentlemanly about rugby? Consider these:

- there is no room for feigning, no fake falling in the penalty box for instance, and certainly not for interrupting a move because play can continue 

- to move forward you have to throw the ball backwards (what a deferential thought in sports!), so to advance you need the whole team to move together

- you can't move onto the opponents' side to grab the ball off them, so all 'battles' have to be settled face to face

- some moves are rewarded more than others, therefore ensuring just pay-offs for great effort

- and punishments are real where players are sent off the game either temporarily or permanently

Appeals to the civilized, don't you think? That this game was created in a posh English public (read private) school during a game of football explains a lot already.

Even more poignantly, it's a game that been the great leveler. The winning NZ World Cup team this year had more than the fair share of indigenous Maoris who were born to play this game given their stocky build, and indeed begin every match with a war cry, the Haka. More dramatically, Nelson Mandela used the 1995 WRC finals (hosted in South Africa) shortly after his release and election as President to unite a divided country post decades of cruel apartheid practices.

Though I played the game competitively (as a hooker) in university, I didn't really follow it. I have only watched two matches (on TV) end to end. Both are Rugby World Cup matches. Both featured Australia in the finals, once as host of the 2003 RWC finals and recently in 2015. Both times the Wallabies lost. And both times to a match winning performance produced by the opposing fly half. 

In 2003, Jonny Wilkinson showed the world what fly halfs can do the win the game with their kicking. Appropriately enough, it was his drop goal in injury time that won it for England in 2003.

Dan Carter also won it for the All-Blacks in 2015. He alone scored 19 points, two points more than that scored by the Aussies. The score line may have suggested a one-sided match but it was far from it. Yes, NZ did lead 21-3 right after half time but the Australians fought back (esp when they had a headcount advantage as a player got sin-binned) to 21-17. And then Carter restored the faith. His drop goal pulled NZ ahead by a clear 7 points and in a game as close and as passionate as this, this margin of a try+conversion meant almost victory.

Victory they got. Both match winners were also man-of-the-match. Their names forever remembered in the history of the game. A game that is truly played by real men!