Category Archives: Rugby

Los Camachos Del Rugby

Gonzalo Camacho plays on the wing for Argentina’s national rugby side, the Pumas. He’s pictured here wearing the colors of Exeter Chiefs in England.

Camacho was on the pitch this past weekend for Argentina’s stunning tie with South Africa in the 4 Nations Rugby Championship (a tie South Africa were lucky to walk away with).

Here’s a cool little video about his rugby family. He’s the oldest of five brothers, all of them ruggers. None of them have reached his exalted heights yet, but the youngest has recently played for Argentina’s U18 side. Besides the five sons, the Camachos also have four daughters. Quite a family.

Important Part of Growing an Afro

I didn’t know it until this morning, but my seven-year-old son has definite opinions on afros, a hairstyle which my father rocked in the ’70s to excellent effect.

This morning we were watching the final match of the regular season for two Australian SuperRugby clubs, the New South Wales Waratahs and the Queensland Reds, a match which ended at 7:30am for us on the east coast of the U.S.

This man had a good game.

This is Tatafu Polota-Nau, hooker for the Waratahs. As my son’s attention was drawn to him, he felt compelled to offer this opinion: “That’s a nice beard. I don’t normally like the fluffy hairstyle, I think it looks silly. But the beard matches pretty well with it.”

So there you have it, fluffy style. If you’re planning on growing an afro, and want to keep my son’s respect, grow out that beard.

66-Year-Old Considers Retiring From Rugby

The other day a couple of the lads from my rugby club and I were sitting on the bleachers having a pre-practice pint and talking about phasing it back a little bit. My two compatriots were right at the 40-year mark and were talking about coaching more and playing less; I knew I wasn’t too far behind. I’ve got a few more good years in me, but I’m not confident my knees can carry my weight around for as long as I’d like.

I guess that with that defeatist attitude I’m toast already. Because this hardcore dude pictured to the left, a 66-year-old truck driver who plays flanker for a club in New Zealand at a similar level to mine, is thinking that maybe it might be time to hang it up. Maybe.

Here’s the story.

After 48 seasons of senior rugby, sometimes playing with the grandsons of old team-mates, the 66-year-old reckons he has had a reasonable trot in the game and is considering making this his last season as a flanker for the Southern United Cavaliers, who sit mid-table in the Waikato senior second division (senior reserve) competition.

“It’s starting to get to the stage now where the pain for the rest of the week is not worth the 80 minutes. It must be coming to a close soon but I wouldn’t like to say exactly when.”

Baptized MacGuyver

Those crazy South Africans and their antiquated manners of expression. This hearty lad was not “born” a MacGuyver, nor was he né MacGuyver. Nope, he was baptized as MacGuyver, according to the still below. And to think that we all used to take the concept of “Christian names” seriously.

The Rugby Macaws

Elsewhere I have spoken of the tendency in the rugby world to take plants as mascots, a habit which I thoroughly approve of. It’s part of the ethos that makes rugby a “hooligans’ game played by gentlemen”. And I always approve of tempered masculinity, or that is to say, I approve of true masculinity.

Brazil Rugby is choosing its mascot. They’ve put the question up to a vote, although I don’t know whether the vote is simply a marketing gimmick or if they’re actually going to simply select the most popular one. You can, if you are willing to go by image alone (since the page is in Portuguese), vote here.

(Readers may not know that I am Brazilian.)

Brazilian rugby clearly stands at a crossroads. A mascot can be a defining thing. There are no plants as options to vote for, perhaps because the giant of South American rugby are Argentina’s Pumas. So I can see how it’s tempting to select something bad-ass. All the choices have some sense of dignity, but I’m a huge fan of the least “dignified” of the choices, for the same reasons I love rugby teams represented by flowers.

The choices are 1. an anaconda, 2. a Tupi Indian warrior, 3. a macaw.

The snake option could definitely be worse. I’m not a fan of overly aggressive mascots, and poisonous snakes are a little over the top, in my opinion. It’s very arena football of one to name one’s team the “rattlesnakes” or “cobras”, I think. There’s a “Roll Tide” inexorability to the Anaconda choice that I kind of like, but the logo’s very aggressive.

The Tupi choice is also okay. I’m a fan of naming your team after a specific warrior people, it does honor to the folk and makes you part of a story. The NFL’s Redskins, for example, are horribly named. That just says “hey, we’re savage warriors, b*****s.” But being a Trojan or a Seminole is awesome. The real Seminoles always jump to Florida State University’s defense whenever some overly liberal white person suggests their mascot is racist. FSU is proud to be associated with the Seminoles, and they are proud to be associated with the school.

All that being said, I do think the choice, and particularly the execution of the logo, is a little hackneyed.

People, vote for the Parrot. Actually, it’s a Macaw, which sounds better in English anyway. The Macaws of Brazil. Os Araras. Love the idea. Here’s the logo.

The text says “A bird that carries our colors in its plumage and is a symbol of Brazil! They’re light, but strong. Small, but agile. As in Rugby, they live in a group and their song can be heard well beyond our borders!”

Snake? Warrior? No thank you.

Loud, flamboyant bird? Yes please. Well suited to one day competing against Palm Trees, Ferns, Oaks, Wallabies, and Springboks.

And since we’re on the topic of Brazilian mascots, expect a post soon on one of the potential logos for the upcoming Olympics in Rio. A one-legged black man with a red cap who’s always smoking a pipe.

Oldest College Football Footage

This is the oldest recording of a college football game, snippets of the 1903 clash of undefeateds Princeton and Yale, filmed by Thomas Edison.

It looks a whole lot more like rugby, you can see how much closer to its progenitor this version of football is. After a tackle the next play gets off nearly as quickly as the next phase in rugby league play (rugby league is rugby union’s stupid little brother).

Courage Not Really A Virtue

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty or mercy which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful until it became risky.”
C.S. Lewis

University of Toronto, the SPS Junior Rugby team, winners of the Mulock Cup in 1915. Every member of this team joined up in 1916 and not all returned. The white crosses, of course, represent men who died.

I had not intended to have anything rugby-related in this post. I was simply looking for a picture to illustrate the Lewis quote. I image-searched “virtutis gloria merces” and this came up.

For All Men: You Are Built For Rugby

One of the sweetest things about rugby is its accessibility to all men. I was watching some online video at Brazil’s SporTV channel, and some rugby coach was saying down there the same thing that is said all over the world, as rugby continues to grow and encounter people who are completely unfamiliar with it.

What rugby players want you to understand, because they want you to play, is that you are built for rugby. Between the nature of play and the way the laws are, there’s a position for everyone. And unlike basketball or football, which reward physical extremes, rugby shares this with soccer: skill is more important than body type or “measurables”. Obviously being really fast or really strong is good, and you won’t get to the highest levels of the game without them, but ballhandling, vision, and willpower are all as or more important than the measurables.

I’m an extreme body type, topping out at 6’9″ and 300 pounds, which you’d think would be perfect for rugby. But it’s not. It allows me to do certain things but not others. There’s no reward for being built like a retired NFL offensive lineman. (Except that if I arrive at a ruck, ball is secure.) If you watch a professional rugby side, the men look like more robust versions of soccer players; that is, regular-looking people. Yeah, if they take their shirts off they look all super-fit and stuff. They’re professional athletes. But human-sized ones.

So bring you body out to a local club and play some rugby. You’re built for it.