Cheering Against the Irish

Today, I cheered against the Irish. Not my beloved Fighting Irish from the University of Notre Dame, regardless of how badly the season is going. But rather, I was cheering against the Ireland rugby team. (with apologies to all of my Irish friends) Tonight, France beat Ireland in an important game in the rugby World Cup preliminary rounds and I couldn’t help but cheer for the French.

I really do miss American college football though, and every Saturday I keep track of when kickoff is for Notre Dame. Anne and I are already plotting to attend a game next season and I still religiously read The South Bend Tribune for any scrap of news about even this really terrible ND football season. For unrelated and unexplained reasons, I even find myself humming “Hail to the Redskins” as I walk down the street—a rare departure from the Notre Dame obsession.

But I have to say, its just not as much fun to watch a Notre Dame game when you are one of six people in the worst room of a bar at 11PM trying to see the game—the circumstances in which I saw the only ND game I’ll see all season at an unfortunate bar called "The Fifth Drink". The game was pretty terrible (the 38-0 loss against Michigan), but the circumstances were even tougher. A game of beer pong, embarrassingly drunk Americans and the TV propped up just inches from a trash can were enough to make me change my mind on which sport I would follow the remaining time in France.

So, I’ve decided to give Rugby a whirl. While seemingly not as international as the soccer World Cup, the rugby World Cup is a big deal, and France is hosting it this year. A quick bit of background: the tournament is every four years, the USA does have a team that’s not that bad, and the game is fast and makes American football look tame. There is a lot of hard tackling and there is virtually no protective equipment. I like that the rugby refs say things like, “No, you cannot kick him in the head” or “I saw that, don’t do it again”.

Rugby is much faster (and in my opinion, more interesting) than soccer and the players are fascinating. Most of the players have necks the size of their heads, which seems unnatural, and there is one particular French player who looks like a caveman and is super fun to watch play.

Sometimes I need a map to find the countries playing—does anyone know where Tonga is? I still don’t, but I know the US lost to them in an early game. The New Zealand team (knows as “The All-Blacks” because of their uniforms) is really great and the French are hanging in there.

Tonight’s game against Ireland was broadcast on a big screen right in front of a 16^th century church just a couple of minutes from our apartment. We went and watched it with a crowd of people, which makes any game more fun. It was unclear if the two carloads of cops were there to control the crowd or just so they could watch the game. Everyone seemed to be having a good time and the crowd ranged from teenagers to middle age women.

During today’s game, when there were breaks in the action, the TV flashed pictures of the French president throwing his head back and cheering and also a group of about seven beautiful women clad only in black bras and lace underwear in the stands. Guess which got a bigger cheer from the crowd…

The tournament wraps up in a few weeks—and I suspect a few more games are on our agenda to check out. Perhaps a few pieces of French Rugby Gear will even make it onto our shopping list and maybe, just maybe, the French National Anthem will replace Hail to the Redskins as my sidewalk song of choice to hum for the next few weeks.

sPg

PS: Here's a photo of a Scottish rugby/football (soccer) rally at a bar near Josh's office.