I started playing Rugby this year. Growing up I’d always opted for what I perceived were less violent sports (Hockey, how wrong I was), so I wanted to at least give it a go before I hit a certain age. The whole endeavour has taken up quite a large chunk of my life recently. There’s going down to support the Saturday game; fundraising nights selling raffle tickets; and recruitment nights trying to get people to come down. I probably spend around half my income (paltry at best) on Steelers related causes and there’s generally some team obligation every weekend.
It’s been great for fitness, meeting people and I’ve even played a few games which were terrifying beyond all comprehension. In fact I was almost sure I wasn’t ready when asked to head down to play after three weeks of training, but everyone assured me the best way to learn was in matches and that we really needed to make the numbers up so just do your best and you’ll probably only play for ten minutes anyway.
I ended up playing for an hour on broken rib cartilage.
It’s been like this all season, the club has had a lot of injuries, so new people have been asked to fill in. We know full well that our lack of experience might cause us injury, but we do it anyway out of loyalty and for the sake of the game which might not go ahead if we don’t play. I was more than happy to put my name down as a sub for games which needed them, but each time I found myself starting and playing for at least forty minutes.
Oh well, c’est la vie right? It didn’t seem like I had a lot of options at the time and I assumed it was all good experience.
So then I guess I was a little disappointed when our coach proceeded to tell us last night how embarrassed he was by the new guys and our performance this season so they’ve decided to cut our training to Mondays only… oh and well, it was either this or thanks-but-no-thanks and realistically we’re only doing this out of guilt because you’re the only ones who consistently turn up to training.
Hm, thanks, but no thanks may become a recurring theme. It may sound a little petulant but frankly, a lot of us have gone way out of our comfort zones this year out of commitment to the team and being lumped with the guilt of dragging the club’s reputation through the mud is not something which I feel we deserve.
H is a 25 y/o New Zealand born ex-pat, pursuing a PhD in Artificial Intelligence at Imperial College in London
