Junior Colts Rugby

The Brentwood Junior Colts Rugby team is the first experience of rugby for most of us. Some of us think we watched some rugby on TV once, but maybe that was Aussie Rules. Anyway, we’re told by senior players that it’s the thing to do in the fall term, and, bolstered by false bravado, we sign up.    Then the first practice, but not before we buy the safety gear, which consists of one $5 mouthguard. At first we’re a bit timid, unsure of exactly what to do, and Mr. Amiel is explaining something about ‘body awareness’ and Mr. Smith is shouting some New Zealand slang that no one understands.   Ciaran B is not new, and not small, and not easy to manage in our first contact drill. After fifteen seconds the coaches decide we’re ready for two games against SMUS and Shawnigan, and it turns out rugby is a lot more fun than you’d think. It turns out Joel C is a real athlete and Ridge R is a tough nutter. Jacob B leads us well and Matt M-P is a silky sort of fellow. Liam P is an intense competitor who you cannot take lightly, and Alula H runs and runs. Zach L is unstoppable at two miles an hour.   The season progresses and somehow we all turn into rugby players. We beat SMUS in a run-and-gun shootout and clobber Mulgrave before losing some close ones to the rest. We tackle and run hard and we fall down and we get back up again. We play as a team.  And we find out that rugby is as much about off-the-field as on. Do you remember that training trip up Mt. Baldy when the coaches made us pick up those rocks as keepsakes? And Blake chucked his at that telephone pole? I liked that day. I didn’t know that we would sing on a bus as much as we did, or that they would delay the ferry for that long, or that we wouldn’t care.   Thanks to the coaches Mr. Amiel, Mr. Cowie, and Mr. Smith; we had a great time.