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your first game of rugby

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goranski

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the first time I saw rugby was i guess during the mid-90s at a Scottish festival in Oklahoma City, the local club was playing someone, anyway the main thing I remember was a guy hoisting an up and under near the sideline where I was sitting, only to be subsequently taken out late-tackled, don't remember much else must have been more interested in the pork pies, highland games log toss going on next door...

my first game playing was in 2004 the heart of america tournament in wichita, kansas - me with the columbia outlaws club vs. the university of oklahoma, played at lock, basically scrummed and tried to keep up for most of the game, absolutely dead after the final whistle only to be told to get ready for our second game of the day :D
 
My First Game of Rugby I got 3 stitches in my right hand when I feel on some flag thing which had a pointy bit at the top.

Could've scarred me for life, being 5 and all.
 
My first game of rugby at the age of 5, my dad snuck me in the under 8s and Yes i remember the fat slippery brown leather Adidas balls that when wet would be like catching a slippery soap :D Also playing in bare feet in those frosty morning's toes were frosted numb. Games were like 8am in the morning. Your rugby Jersey would was soo big it looked like a one piece dress, The style of the jerseys made us look like bumble bees...lol Also remember looking forward to full time, pipping HOT Milo's awaits us at the club room bar 50 little cups steaming away in the cold air...

Those are my finniest rugby memory's as a kid... GRASS ROOTS YEEHAAA !!
 
My first game of rugby....... :( was a long time after being put in reserve so it wasn't good. I was 10 in my first season not knowing my position :D Coach never actually gave me a chance. :wah: Anyways here I am now big and strong and not playing anymore. hehehe
 
Just like to add a bit more to the memory's...

Remember chasing the sheep off the field before we played (that was a classic) even getting tackled in and smeared in sheep ****, both sides would stop a crack up at who ever fell in the ****. Also the smell of "Deep heat" walking down the corridor's of the changing room showers the smell of it stinging your eye's... Every time i smell that same smell, even now days i get gut wrenching butterfly's
 
my first game was when i was 7th form (yr 13) lol playing in the first xv, i remember spraining my ankle, continued playing, smashing a white guy (they had a overlap and would've scored but my sonny bill'ism stopped that!!) and passing the ball to the fullback (playing wing sux) i got subbed late in the 2nd half then we started losing. H
 
First game I ever watched on TV- Auckland Flour Bomb test back in 81. Got hooked immediately, and the old man took me to the old Boet Erasmus stadion in PE a while later to watch my 1st live game- EP vs WP. Immediately fell in love with the magnificent Mountain Goats, right there and then.

First game playing- way back in 83, for my primary school, Rowallan Park Primary against our great rivals, Kabga Park primary. Played for the under 6 team, barefoot and all. Don`t remember much more than I was kinda tall for my age, and ended up as a lock in that 1st season, before moving to centre the next. Can`t remember much of the match, not even who won really, just that it was great fun running with the ball.
 
My first game of rugby....... :( was a long time after being put in reserve so it wasn't good. I was 10 in my first season not knowing my position :D Coach never actually gave me a chance. :wah: Anyways here I am now big and strong and not playing anymore. hehehe
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...by the way I used to play for Norths, Jerry Collin's long-time club. Yay Yah! Proud and hard out represent.
 
I played my 1st game 2 yrs ago for my school. We played against aranui which was full of fat maoris. We won. They chucked the ball behind them instead of passing. The only thing i cud actually do was run and i ddnt kno the rules.
 
First match I watched was an East Midlands derby between Northampton and Leicester at Franklins Gardens. We lost, and I'm not even sure there were any tries scored, but the atmosphere had me hooked.

Playing wise, first match was when I was about 11. This was at the age where you played 12 a side on a smaller pitch rather than 15s. Played for my club's second team, and because I was new and obviously not a prop, I got put on the wing.

We were expected to get destroyed by the bigger country boys on the other team, but we came away with a 14-14 draw. Best moment was when I sidestepped the biggest player on the pitch to score in the corner. Never lost the buzz when scoirng a try since.
 
I played it in school once or twice.

I learned two things :

* Our PE Teacher was a lot quicker than he let on.

* Getting hit in the face doesn't hurt that much.

The first games I ever watched on telly would be the Guscot/Underwoods/Carling era 5 nations.

First game I ever saw live was a Super 12 game : Reds V Highlanders.

I did a hopelessly self indulgent article on it a while back :

"The Rugby?!?!? Are you a woolyback or what?"

"A load of sweaty posh blokes grabbing each other's balls? No thanks"

"It's egg-chasing, get a grip."

It's not an uncommon reaction where I'm from. Liverpool, you might be aware, has a pretty good pedigree when it comes to football. Almost without exception if you are a Scouser you are either red or blue...there is no room for anything else. Well almost...I remember as a kid taking a break from the constant games of football to watch the Internationals. Will Carling. Rob Andrew. Jeremy Guscott. The Underwoods and their crazy mum...the national team was on the radar but nothing else. You'd certainly never take an interest in the normal down-to-earth club rugby that got read out at the end of final score. Gosforth? Harlequins? Saracens? They aren't the names for proper teams. It's Plymouth Argyle not Plymouth Albion...Nottingham that has the Forest not Jedburgh. No, in the 'pool we stuck to what we knew. There was no need to diversify...in the early 80s regardless of which one it was you could be fairly happy that your team was one of the best in Europe. Who needed a bunch of muddy amateurs playing for a team with a funny name?

Basically that's the way it stayed until I went away travelling. From my days watch the 5 Nations I had a rough working knowledge of the game and whilst staying in Brisbane us and a few of our fellow hostellers grabbed tickets for the Queensland Reds V Otago Highlanders game. It's fair to say that sitting on the hill at the near end of Ballymore Stadium was more than a bit bewildering. Not nearly as much of a culture shock as it was to our Danish friends ("It's quite violent isn't it") but still pretty early on I decided that it was easier just to go with the flow and enjoy the game...the rules would come later.

My abiding memory of the game was of Wendell Sailor...there was something about him that just made me think "sh*thouse". I wasn't sure how I knew but after spending my entire youth watching sport I knew a player who was giving it everything for the team. "Is he injured or something?" I enquired of a local "Nah, he's just a fairy" came the answer. "Yeah..." I thought "...gotcha". I mightn’t have known much about the game but this was a sport I could ‘get’.

So with that grounding we moved across the Tasman Sea. I'd like to think that no visit to the UK would really be complete without going to a football match. It's the people's game. It's fundamentally part of the national identity, an all pervasive lowest common denominator. It'd be difficult to visit the British Isles without touching upon it but to actually get to grips with the game, the allegiances, the rivalries is massive part of getting to grips with the British psyche. The same is true with Rugby Union down in New Zealand. We'd arrived in Auckland and were immediately swept along into the tail end of the 2003 Super 12 season. Most of the family we were staying with were islanders...natural born rugby players. Rugby League was okay but the 15 man game was everything.

I have a pet theory that sports fans the world over will talk about their team in much the same way...it's only when you hear them talking about their rivals that you really understand them. On the day we arrived in Auckland the folks we were staying with plonked a couple of crates of Lion Red in the front room and settled down to watch Canterbury Vs Wellington...they'd actually bought Hurricanes hats purely 'cause they hated the Crusaders and so that’s basically where it started for us. The Blues won the Super 12 that year, uncle Dave and his brother Jason were proud as punch whilst Aunt Moira swooned over Carlos Spencer. Having Brits in their midst, however, was making the Kiwis nervous...even folks as footy orientated as us had realised that England where looking a bit good. The autumn internationals months previous had been a massive success for the northern hemisphere and a Grand Slam had finally been completed by our boys. The locals were unimpressed. England were boring, old, slow, one-dimensional and above all arrogant...they were coming over in a few weeks and these facts would be demonstrated. In the mean time we were to sit back and get more Lion Red down us. I loved it : The game, the banter, the obsession. The pride with which they talked about their team was pretty infectious. The almost reverent way Dave, Jason et al spoke about the national team ("Yeah, he's pretty good but he's not an All-Black"). It helped that we instantly fell in love with New Zealand...that such a nice bunch of people had something they all adored made it impossible not to get swept along. We were welcome to join in on the understanding that England WOULD lose when they came down here.

In the event our lads didn't read the script...they played two tests, one each against NZ and OZ. The first saw Wilkinson kick the All Blacks into the ground and our pack hold their own goal-line whilst two men down. If that wasn't good enough two weeks later we took Australia to the cleaners by three tries to one in Melbourne. A 40 yards rolling maul being a particular highlight. It didn't matter that the locals still weren't impressed we'd done it. You notice the "we" there...that's what came of our travels round the world's most rugby obsessed nation. All of a sudden, out of guilt by association, England were "we" and what's more they were looking good. The World Cup followed soon after our return to the UK...I'm sure no-one needs reminding of what happened there. So there you have it, we'd jumped firmly on the band-wagon.

In the aftermath of this as the games increased media profile it was easy to have a look around at what was happening in the 'club scene'. The only problem was our nearest top level team was Sale....egg-chasing may have been a lot more alluring prospect to my little Scouse self but there was no-way I was going to cheer on a load of Mancs. There were plenty of teams around but it seemed wrong just to seize upon one. Leicester and Northampton both seemed nice choices as Austin Healey & Matt Dawson were both good Evertonians but to really support a team it had to be somewhere local. Enter Waterloo...as it happened my first game was against Blackheath a club that was deeply involved in the formation of the football league...I don't remember that much of the game because Cains Lager was one pound a pint but the rugby was fun and the place was wonderfully friendly & welcoming.

It didn't take much soul searching to realise we found our club, who needed the Premiership when you could drink with club players and officials standing next to memorials to the club's war heroes in a clubhouse that reeked of tradition and heritage (and beer and liniment). Since then an increasing number of us go to Waterloo whenever our footy teams aren't playing. It's a great club and handy neutral ground for reds and blues to meet up for some Saturday sport. There is still pitifully few people I know who are into rugby but who cares...the internet keeps you in touch with all the rugby info & chat you need. It doesn't matter our team will almost certainly never attain a decent level of play. The team do what they can do and the bar, with it's real ale and open fire, is always welcoming. Waterloo will always be second fiddle to the footy but does that really matter? We don't care.
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First game I ever saw live was Scarlets v Leinster at the Racecourse in Wrexham, back in 2004, only about a year after I had first gotten into rugby. I guess the first televised match I watched was one of Wales' games at the 2003 World Cup.

Took me about a year to get to grips with the playing aspect, so I didn't bother training with the school teams until sixth form. Made my playing bow about a week after the first training session, against Adams Grammar School in Newport, Shropshire. My only problem was that I wasn't into the habit of wearing contact lenses at the time, so I spent the whole match as blind as a bat and not really knowing properly what I was supposed to be doing. In many ways, I still don't. Just about getting used to tackling properly, which is a bit embarrassing considering I started playing nearly 3 years ago. Then again, when you start playing at age 16, it's always going to take a little bit more time to get used to than if you started at age 5.
 
My first game was the start of last season when they gave me 10 mins on the blind flank. I ran round like a headless chicken and even put in a few tackles (only because they ran at me so I kinda had no choice) Loved every minute
 
My first game was lots of fun, I got stamped on in the tackle and turned at every scrum (it was my first game, bless) but I still had lots of fun!
 
First game I played was in, 2002, scored 3 tries (Marian V Conleths our bigest rivals)

First game I went to was ireland v Fiji (70-13) i think!

First game on TV I was 5, France vs Australia in a WC!
 
Well i've played on and of for abit now first game was for school we lost by 80 points

But start of this season is when i actualy have time in my life to keep rugby up.
 
First match was against the rival school in the next village...

We were losing 30 odd nil and in the last minute I scored a consolation try from the back of a maul :p
 
hey dudes.

my first game of rugby was in school in time for the 1999 world cup. unlike most of you it was organised by us students. it was quite a buzz around the school for some reason (lomu haircuts, hakas, etc,). we played on a small pitch, 5 v 5 and it was really quite fun, until you get injured and in trying to retrieve a loose ball, tripped over my friends head. he never played rugby again. :p
 
first rugby match i ever saw on telly: Lomu gets the ball out on the wing, and then proceeds to literally trample his way over Englands back line, loved it ever since :D

first match was when i started sixth form, against Warminster 1st XV, played on the smallest rugby pitch known to man, the 22 was only about 15 yards away from the try line! anyway, from the kickoff they secured the ball and shipped it out to their winger, who i promptly flattened, giving myself a dead leg in the process. I also scored our opening try of the match, from halfway, outpaced their winger and then ran over their fullback, will never forget that feeling.

could hardly walk for the next few days but it was definitely worth it
 

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