The thin of it: playing against Hong Kong Football Club

Ah yes, another sporting weekend was had. Our women's team played against the Kowloon-Aberdeen combined side and won 32-5. It was a sloppy game and seemed as though we were scrumming or facing a penalty ever few steps. I am sure that both teams were frustrated by the huge amount of errors committed. I think we committed more errors but thankfully our scrummaging was solid and our defense may have moved forward in field position almost as quickly as our offense. I was asked to move to lock in the second half, which is the one position in the pack that I have never played. I had never even practiced at lock because my height, even in Hong Kong, is just average and I am certainly is too short in the States. I don't know what all the fuss is about because I thought locking was far more easy than being in the front row. I did not have to counter any disruptive actions of the other team and I had my legs in a much better position than the semi-squat a prop has to manage. I think that being a front row player was to my advantage because I had the mindset to hit hard on the engage and it made a noticeable difference when the ball came in and we ran over the other pack.

After our game we went to see the men take their turn with Football Club. They lost, which was not exactly surprising. SB did have a very good game on his own to my delight. He isn't one of those superstars with an arsenal of moves but he is a solid workhorse and he had a very high work rate throughout the game. He also was asked to jump and came through for his teammates, even stealing a few of FC's throw ins. Of course FC won with their infamous lack of grace. I won't go into a litany of poor behavior but I will say that later in the second half, when they had clearly secured the victory, one of the tight five (I am pretty sure it was Number 5) gave SB a cheap shot in a ruck. He delivered an upper cut right in SB's eye and knocked him flat backwards.

One of the things I most hate in rugby is the prevalence of poor and cowardly behavior from frustrated or overly aggressive players. It happens at all levels, even in top level, and seems to be somehow acceptable. I was shocked by the lack of reaction from his teammates when Brad Thorn picked John Smit up and dumped him over backwards, causing him serious injury in the Tri Nations and I was enraged that this person from Football Club injured SB. The Assistant Referee was standing three meters away when this happened but somehow manged to pretend that he did not see it. Perhaps he did not think the punch was very hard, but any eye contact is quite serious. SB was unable to see out of his eye for the rest of the game, and more importantly, he did not recover his vision until Sunday morning. This made me angry and scared, and if I had encountered Number 5 after the game I may not have behaved properly. This would have been very bad for me since if he managed to knock SB backward I can only imagine what he would have done to me, being ten inches shorter than SB and 80 lbs lighter. I shall end this by saying that the Number 5 lock from Hong Kong Football Club is a cowardly thug who shows an appalling lack of sportsmanship. He is also probably a card carrying sociopath and clubs baby seals in his spare time.

Comments