Thursday 25 February 2010

'The hippopotamus was no ignoramus, and sang her this sweet serenade...'

...I have never seen that much mud in my life. Not even once. Except maybe the time I fell over in the stagnant pond and lost a welly. Or when I went hunting for Mickey's shoe in the wonderous New Hampshire bog. OK, so I may have seen that much mud in my life. But I'm pretty sure I've never tried to play rugby in it before.

Yesterday I reached the pinnacle of my manhood. I have spent years of my life in the pursuit of all things big, butch and scary, and have been laughed at whenever I have claimed to be those things. NO MORE. Alas, I have left the land of the small and timid people to become one of the most fearsome, savage adventurers of the world. I might even explore the possibilities of become a Viking.

At about a quarter to two, one cloudy afternoon (yesterday, in fact), I donned my number 6 shirt (how peculiar) and ran fearsomely out onto the pitch. I then took great delight in smushing people much bigger than me. Repeatedly. And slipping over in scrums because of the absurdly-short (suck on that, Philip Larkin, I can use compound adjectives too!) studs in my children's boots. So perhaps I have a long way to go to be big, but I think that I definitely have butch and scary in the bag after my expedition to the dark side.

As far as I know, there aren't any photos from the match, but I would like to assure all of my readers that I can strike fear into the hearts of props the world about. Be afraid. And instead I have included a photo of what I would look like if I were a Viking. And had a beard.

To top it all off, after being fearsome I was awarded forward of the match. An honour that still seems absurd. A forward? Me? Are you sure? Hooray for trying out new things, and let that be a lesson to all the people who mocked me and told me I wasn't butch and scary enough. HA!

And now that I have had a chance to be both a blindside and an openside flanker, I can happily say that it isn't quite so bad after all. I may even try again one day. But it would be nice to have the chance to do something sneaky deaky with the ball every now and again.

No comments: