This past Saturday was my first rugby game in a little over a year – a game against the Charlotte Royals, a fellow IGR (International Gay Rugby) team from Charlotte, NC. The Flamingos have played the Royals before, but not on our own home field, so this was the Royals’ first visit to Baltimore.
The game was a “friendly” game, meaning that it wasn’t part of our required conference games, and doesn’t count toward our standing in the league. These friendly games are an important part of our season, as they allow less experienced players to get game experience without worrying about how that might affect our ability to play competitively, as is a concern for conference games. Another result of it being a friendly game is that we’re allowed some wiggle room within the rules. Generally within rugby, you only have a set number of subs – 8 of them, to be exact – and when they’re all used up, you don’t get others, you just have to play down a man if someone gets injured, and players cannot go back in if they are pulled out. With friendly games, we have “rolling subs”, meaning we can take players in and out at will. That helps not just with player exhaustion, but also allows us to put in players for shorter amounts of time if they want – players who might be newer/less experienced, less in shape, etc. Since this is my first season practicing as a forward and I’ve missed a few weeks thanks to Egypt and another hand infection, I wanted to play, but for a limited amount of time, so this was a perfect opportunity.
At first I admit that I was a little concerned about getting to play, as the only position I really can safely and effectively play at the moment is Flanker (I’m no longer in good enough shape to be a back, and I can’t safely play Hooker without more experience), and both of the flankers we had on the field are both great players and have great endurance. Toward the last quarter of the game, however, one of the flankers for the Royals needed to tap out, and I ended up being put in to replace him, playing against my own team!
Though at first I was disappointed, I’m actually really glad that I was able to play for another team for part of a game. It gave me some great perspective on how other teams work together, and it made me think a lot more critically about each action I took, as I couldn’t rely on the knowledge of what my fellow teammates generally do, as they were all strangers! Thankfully their flyhalf, Craig, gave me some good direction during the game, so I didn’t feel totally lost – at least not most of the time.
It was my first experience playing flanker in a game and honestly, I really enjoyed the position, despite realizing that I need to work on my cardio and endurance a lot more. I feel like my form in the scrum is pretty good (seen below), though I got knocked over a couple times when the pack started to turn and wheel, which I need to learn how to resist. In general though, it’s less of a “thinking” position and more of a “doing” position – my roles as flanker are much simpler, in many ways, than they were as a back, and the things I’m supposed to do are the parts of rugby I enjoy doing.
I also found that the position activated my anxiety and fear a lot less than being a back. Watching the brutality of the forwards, while standing in the back line, always made me a tad bit worried about the prospect of having to defend if the opposing team tried to get past me. But, as a flanker, the rucks and tackles are pretty much right there, in your face already, so there’s not really…time…to have much of a reaction to it. You just go for it.
I did get tackled a couple times, though I got off a pass mid-tackle at one point, which made me happy. I also apparently had the right instinct for once and jumped on top of the ball like a grenade when it got accidentally kicked out of a ruck, creating a turnover for my team. I often have a problem with hesitating on actions because I’m not 100% sure what the rules regarding a given situation are, but sometimes my instincts just take over, as they did when I dove on the ball, and I’m glad that for once, those instincts were apparently the right ones. That happens considerably less often than I’d prefer. But, it’s something that will improve as I get more experience in games.
Anyway, the game went well, the Royals were a great set of people to hang out with, and I think that my new choice of position is a good one for me, so I’m going to call that all a win.
