rugby

Before I attended Sparks in the Park last Saturday, I watched my first rugby game -- partly on television at home and the last quarter at my packed neighbourhood pub.

Saturday was the start of the Internationals with the Welsh playing a team from the Southern Hemisphere each Saturday in November at Millennium Stadium here in Cardiff. Last week they had a turn against Australia (whom they took a gallant run at but apparently haven't beaten very often), this week it will be South Africa, and the following Saturdays the Welsh will play against Fiji and New Zealand.

Rugby has always been a mystery to me and the most I'd seen anything of it before last week was in the film Invictus about Nelson Mandela and the South Africa rugby team. In that film even it seemed to just be barbaric, slow-motion muscle against muscle in the scrums. So, it was quite a surprise to me to find it an exciting game to watch, especially when the teams would pass the ball back across the width of the field, man to man. I'm afraid I got hooked with an early toss.

The fireworks were in the City Centre at the Castle, only a block from Millennium Stadium, so I walked through the Centre after the game. What a great buzz. What a vibrant core. Much of the centre is pedestrianized now and one of the main thoroughfares has huge flags of the participating rugby teams hanging from lampposts.

In February is another series called Six Nations (not the same as the Canadian aboriginal Six Nations), which includes European teams.

I would really like to see one of these games live at the stadium.