The Business???

If you haven't already seen this video from the Maryland v NC State football game this past Saturday, the referee makes an interesting personal foul call, see the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TTGZJlZpyc

Just in case you were wondering, the business is when one man hits another man in the private area.

World Cup

I got up at 2am this morning to go to an Irish Pub and watch the England v France Semi Final World Cup match. If you have been reading, you would know that I have really gotten into Rugby since getting hear, and going to watch an England game with a British friend is always fun, in fact the place was packed with Brits for the 3am start. To cut to the chase, England beat France 14-9, and for those of you not familiar with Rugby scoring, it is similar to American Football in that a try (touchdown in American Football) can result in up to 7 points. As you can see, there was not much scoring, but the game was really intense and a really fun game to watch (England came from down 1 with 6 minutes left to take the lead and win the match). Most of the people there were not expecting England to win (which I am learning appears to be the typical British expectation, that their team will fail, so if they win, they can be all the more excited), so they were very excited to see the result. My friend and I have already booked a table for next weekend's final match that will put England versus either South Africa (note they got beat down by South Africa already in the World Cup) or the surprise of the World Cup Argentina.

On a side note, much of the world thinks that we Americans are pretty simple minded people, although I have observed many things to make me believe that we are actually one of the better countries when it comes to racial tolerance (I know we still have many racial issues, but believe me, it is definitely not as bad as some other countries). I was stunned to hear during the broadcast that one of the black French Rugby players (I only noted 3 black players on France's team) had a nickname of the "Dark Destroyer." Does anyone else out there think there is anything wrong with this nickname???? Again, we have racial problems in the US, but I don't think it would ever fly if a black player of any sport was called the "dark" anything. I guess he is okay with the nickname, or maybe it is just that so many white people refer to him as this that he has just accepted, either way he should probably think about his nickname being shortened to the "destroyer" unless of course there is a "light destroyer" on the team, then I can see the name being justified...oh wait, no, that just makes it worse.

Sore Winners???

As I have said in the past, I have gotten into Rugby ever since coming over here to China. This past weekend was the kick off of the Rugby World Cup. The first round is a pool round, similar to that of the Soccer World Cup, and USA played England in the first game of the "pool" round (n0te that the US is in the red in this picture). To give you some background, England won the world cup 4 years ago and is clearly seen as one of the top programs in the world. On the other hand, the US is not even close to a top tier team. Think of the game as being USA basketball (this would be England) playing Venezuela (this would be the US). The two prior games that were being played right before the England vs US game also featured top tier teams against teams that aren't considered to be that good. The first game was between Australia and Japan (Australia being the powerhouse) with the result of this match being 91-3. The second game featured New Zealand (the powerhouse) against Italy with the result being 76-14.

Now I attended the game with my British friend at a place that was full of England supporters. Needless to say they were looking for a result that rivalled that of the previous two games mentioned above. The Americans actually played really good and most of the people left the bar that we were at with some respect for the US, with the final result being 28-10 in favor of England. Now even though they won by 18, most of the people were thinking that they would win by at least 30, so this 18 point differential was, to say the least, a disappointment. The guy I went with was so ashamed of their performance that he bought the drinks for the night, after the game it was a feeling like even though England won, that they lost the match, it was kind of weird. Anyway, all I have to say is that, I actually think the US can make it out of the first round if they play this strong against Samoa and Tonga (note that they will most likely get blown out of the water by South Africa who is another top tier team).