James Douma                     Rugby

In rugby there is a lot of action going on in it, there’s people trying to tackle you and there is no way of trying to get out of getting hurt a few times a game but you just have to deal with it. My first year in rugby I started playing for the senior team at my high school Riverside Secondary, because they didn’t have a junior team because not a lot of juniors played. My first game I was a starter on the team, so I was one of the players that played first quarters of the games, I had a lot of adrenaline going through my body because I had guys about 6ft tall at least going up against me and my team mates. The grass was short like someone just cut it right before the game, it’s smelled very fresh had good weather luckily, it was hot and sunny, and there was a lot of people watching. When the game started I was getting nervous a little bit because I didn’t wanna get hurt really badly but I played anyways because my team mates said that all of that worrying is just in my head and it’s not as bad as it seems. The referee called the game to start and everybody started running at once, people were yelling at each other to get to there positions and to go straight into the tackles. One of my team mates passed me the ball and I booked it as fast as I could run, I ran past a few guys and then a big guy tackled me to the ground,it felt like a big thump to my chest, but it didn’t hurt a lot so I was fine,so I got back up and passed it to one of my team mates before another guy could tackle me. The guy that I passed it too found an open space where there were no opponents on the other team so he ran up and got our team a point. The other team was a lot more experienced because they were all grade 12’s and had played for a lot longer than most of us. We only had a few guys who were actually experienced and played out of school, in a league. We lost that game by a lot of points, because they were all bigger than us and knew how to play a lot better. At the end of the season I decided that I really like the sport, so I joined a league with some of my team mates that I played with in school rugby. I had a lot of fun in the league, I made a lot of friends, all the guys on my team were all good guys. One guy on our team was nice to the team but wasn’t nice to the other teams,he would be swearing and yelling and trying to start fights all the time with the other teams, even though he wasn’t a really big guy either. Everybody had to tell him to shut up on the team, including the referee. To be a captain of a rugby team, you have to know everything, the positions, make plays and strategies for your team, and you have to have a very low temper, most of the captains I knew didn’t get mad very easy, you would have to do a lot to get them mad, because you can’t be a crazy captain who trash talks the referee and the other teams because that wouldn’t be could to have a captain that’s un-sportsman like. At the start of a gam, the field is always neat and clean looking, but at the end the field is just dirt pit, from everybody tackling and running all over the the place with cleats on. When it starts getting messy with dirt everywhere, you get a lot in your mouth and it tastes really gross, it comes off of people cleats when there running or when you get tackled and you go face first into the dirt, it’s just something you can’t get away from. The saying in rugby is “it’s a hooligans game, played by gentlemen.” So at the end of every game the opposing teams become good friends at the end and take a knee on the ground with each other while the referee says how we played. That is why I like rugby a lot and is my favourite sport right now.