DUMS RFC / T -0

Christiansen
January 19, 2020
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t -1 continued

It`s Friday evening and it`s still snowing. Maybe the best

game partner from this season will become just a friend in a snowballs throwing game. Funny fact: exactly in the Kids Park. The Scots were presented to us like some brave lads that got to play a final on Murrayfield. That stadium is the biggest stadium in Scotland, bigger than our football national stadium (and the place where Scotland won 42 to 0 against our national rugby team in 2007, besides other facts). They being amateurs. This is what it means for a society to have a sports culture. Ours hasn`t at all any, …unfortunately – see the case from the last days from Ditrău.

WTF?!?!?!?!?

Very probably even our national rugby team won`t play in such a big stadium in our lifetime. Do you realize where we`re living?

t -0

I do not know how it`s for my colleagues but for me it was hard to get asleep the evening before the game. I am not sure if it was some unknown cause not related to the game, or I was just excited for it.

The point was to get up fresh. I woke pretty well around 8:30. At 11 o`clock the game was starting and therefore I did not eat much. Outside it was very cold and I thought only that I`ll get wet and that would suck. I was always scared of cold and humidity. I remember a training when we started rolling on a very wet pitch in the first 5 minutes of warm-up. 10 minutes after it started to snow. Or when we were in Dublin: although it was only September, I do not recall temperatures over 5 degrees C. We had to play a game in rainy conditions. The wind was so cold and strong that the drops felt like cutting the skin of our faces. There were many such times but fortunately I never got cold. Then I was also afraid that I might forget home the music sticks, the microphone or something that I would need during the game although my colleagues were exchanging a lot of things in the changing room. We did not get yet to doubles or currency.

We started to gather at the pitch. A few sips of pălincă and dumb jokes gave us trust that we`ll get over this snow. When I saw the Scots wearing their kilt, I realized that it might be not that cold but in the same time I perceived them as bolder than us. No matter how carefully the game might have been played, there would have been some serious hits. We went to change and were continuous looking for more clothes to put on. The snow ruined all and when we started the warm-up, even the game, all seemed to me like some kids play behind the block in the neighborhood. It was only very demanding: after I ran a pitch tour, I thought I`d die.

We agreed on 20 minutes game time repeating it till we cannot play further. The game speed and the opportunities to pass decreased a lot. As a wing I had the impression that everything moves slow. The only moments with some speed were when someone had broken the line. In fact almost all tries were scored like this. We defended pretty well although it was hard to stop the Scots which were running towards us. On the other side, they did not even touch us because they left bigger spaces which we attacked. No one from them did run after the escaped guy. The effort was too big. Otherwise the game was pretty simple and in the most cases this is enough.

After 60 minutes we said stop. The Scots were nice lads and we agreed that a game on the grass would have been more spectacular with more than 8 tries. They really knew how to play but we would have been even faster. I think that only after the game we started to chill and make fun. In the changing rooms all was black even with the lights on after seeing so much white powder. We sang and were happy that we`ll retreat in some warmer spot. Even if the effort was not great, I felt tired and disappointed that we prepared so much for so little although this might be only my opinion.

After 16 o`clock we met in a pub in the Old City to watch the 6 Nations and socialize. I guess that the bad luck followed us also here as the beer was pretty shit. I am not sure if the fact that the barman gave us the glasses half filled with foam was a good luck. More importantly it`s that I`ll never drink beer in such occasions again. I discovered that the Scots were not Scots in fact. Some were English and even supported England. The English victory was also some kind of disappointment. The most funny was Ț. who, joking, desired to beat some guys. He took away his glasses and I could read on his face that there is no other choice than this. Somehow like the B.U.G. Mafia lyrics, a band he likes – ”I choose to do this, there was nothing else…”. Fortunately he did not beat anybody although M. would have deserved some beating. Not only that he makes every outfit, even from Virgil Abloh, to look like shit, but he drank coca-cola with beer in the same time. WTF!? Well, we`ll meet at the trainings.

Not even the ”Procesul” (the Round Process) was not televised that evening but we found new future jokes. Remember high-pitched voice. The rest stays internally.

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Of same importance it is that nobody got injured and we can train for the next game. Again some students but from Bristol. Clifton Crusaders RFC. Bristol is a pretty representative city for the contemporary British culture. We hope that also for rugby although the boys seemed a bit scared of us after they spoke to some common friends (Old Streetonians RFC) we ”killed” last year.