Rugby

In 2016, rugby will return to the Olympics after an absence of nearly a century.  Rugby union has only been featured in four Olympic games, the latest in 1924.  When US team defeated France in Paris angry fans invaded the field and the French team and police had to protect the US team.  This gave rugby a bad reputation, and the IOC cut rugby in favor of focusing on women's and individual sports.

Men's and women's rugby sevens will be played in Rio.  Sevens is a version of union that features only seven people per team, and has a shorter playing time.  Panther City Rugby has a women's team (the Pink Panthers) and they let us come join one of their practices.  They are always looking for "sturdy" women to play with them.

To warm up, we just formed into two teams and tried to get the ball into the end zone by running and passing.  We didn't worry about rules or positions at this time, we were just practicing throwing, catching, and playing in a group.

We then worked on some drills to learn proper rugby techniques.  You can only pass the ball to a teammate behind you on the field, so we lined up and ran across the field to do just that.  Its actually harder than you think to not run in front of the person with the ball.

The Pink Panthers played a two-hand touch game with one of the men's teams on the next practice field, but we didn't participate.  The coach took some time to explain to us more of the rules, and how scrums and rucks work.  We've watched rugby on TV a few times, but we were not familiar with the rules at all.  The things we thought were important turned out to not be important at all, and we had no idea what the real important aspects were.  We had a lot of fun, and would like to go back and maybe join that two-hand touch game.  Its always nice to find something that appreciates sturdy women.