Watching the Six Nations Rugby this last week or two reminded me of the last time I saw the Springboks play in Wales. It was during their final tour before the anti-apartheid pressure took its toll. The boyos from the valleys, all cloth caps and white mufflers, poured from the trains and into the grounds. Beside their path was a long-haired fellow with beard, duffel coat and sandals (in mid-February), standing on a small box and haranguing the crowd about why they should forego the match in the name of the evils of apartheid. A BBC cameraman filmed as the rugby crowds totally ignored him. Eventually, in desperation, he stepped down from his box, stopped a group of colliers and literally holding one lad by his lapels yelled, “Now, I ask you, which is more important, a game of rugby or the political aspirations of a downtrodden people?” The puzzled lad looked around, shrugged at the frantic fellow and answered, “Well, the rugby, of course…”. Collapse of bearded weirdo. The lad simply didn’t understand the silly question.
Anyway, now the apartheid hatchet has been buried, though by whom and in whose shoulders among those specialists in homogenising human brains who could be sure?
Now we can enjoy the rest of that mixture of skill and slaughter that some find a bore and others of us a way of life. Rugby is, in fact, for those interested, a purely biological process. Next to all-out war, it is the best example on earth of natural selection at full speed ahead. Its terminology is arcane and esoteric, so a short glossary in no particular order might help
Rugby. A form of legal infighting called a game, played by men with odd shaped balls, balls so distorted they can’t stay true. This gives rise to the rugby motto ‘Never mind the ball, let’s get on with the game.’
Take out: Nothing to do with food. It’s what you do to opponents in such a way that the ref won’t be sure.
Ruck: A perspiring melee in which eyes are gouged, mud and beards are rubbed over faces, and genitals are mishandled.
Referee: Spoilsport sort of chap who stops the fighting. Commonly ignored.
Linesman: Nitwit running up and down the touchline waving a little flag. Equally ignored.
Conversion: Religious experience conferring two extra points for good behaviour.
Toss-up: Method of deciding which side gets to attack the other first.
Maul: An untidy ruck.
Loose maul: What goes on in a ruck or a maul.
Scrum: A tidy ruck. Group of stooping men holding each other in unspeakable places and into which the ball is thrown and then kicked back out again.
Scrum-half: Man with the ball who gets to put it in and catch it coming out again.
Hooker: Not a lady of ill-repute, but a large but short, aggressive villain, also of ill repute. Usually bald and with arms so long he can pull up socks without stooping. Familial tendency.
Prop: Man who supports hooker during his attempts to inflict GBH.
Line-out: Two lines of men who must stand well apart but don’t and must not hit each other, but do.
Rules: Laws of play written in a book that no-one remembered to bring.
Tactics: Name for mayhem, assault and battery.
Strategy: Another name for the same thing.
All-Blacks: New Zealand team who very seldom are.
Gareth Edwards: God, thinly disguised.
Score: Irrelevant final listing of points acquired.
Punt: Kicking the ball direct from the hand. Slightly altered, also used to describe unfavourable referee.
Captain: Only there so there’s someone to blame if there is human error (As with a jetliner pilot).
Foul Play: No such animal.
Up-and-under: Kicking a ball high to give players time to get into position to hurt whomsoever they most dislike, or anyone else.
Penalty: Alternative name for referee.
Screwed Ball: I pass.
I hope that will leave readers perhaps none the wiser but at least better informed. Meanwhile, now the lawyers and doctors and accountants and such who doff their suits on Saturday afternoons and enjoy themselves in mud and blood and beer can get locked into unarmed combat with all the patience of an elephant with haemorrhoids. So kick the tyres, light the fires, and the first man up is a cissy.
I’m well aware that if you’re not a rugby fan you won’t understand the game or the fuss. But then, the chessmaster will never understand the mind of the man who throws dice as a pastime, will he?
