and again

[if you're sick and tired of my rugby-related ramblings as i suspect they make no sense to you then do skip this post :) ]

we won writtle 17-10. the game was a lot more one-sided than the score suggests, and needless to say, we dominated for most part.

that is not to say that writtle's lousy. they were a spunky team, but i think there might have been something wrong with either their tackling techniques or their fitness/match stamina. because every 10 minutes, someone from their team would get injured, or leave the pitch for a substitution.

half their team seemed to be shorter than me. but they charged up with the ball whenever they were on attack, and managed to gain quite a lot of ground.

unfortunately, the tries that we let in were largely due to defence errors on our part. that was a let-down.

yesterday's game was a major improvement from last week. there was lots of teamwork, and everyone was nicely fired up. i like how our team gets sufficiently aggressive but not mean and brutal like other teams (e.g. we don't curse and swear if the defenders make mammoth tackles on us. for goodness sakes, it's rugby). the coach actually came down today for the first time, and so did last year's captain (amy). it made an enormous difference to hear someone with experience authoratively point out our mistakes and tell us what to do.

i was overjoyed with the amount of ball that the backs got. finally the ball was coming out of the scrum, and being passed to us. landmark achievement here. :D and some of the backs made some great runs today. i did one very successful loop with my inside-centre liv, it put me in space and let me gain some ground - before getting tackled ;| feeling quite optimistic about the backs at the moment, maybe i'd been too pessimistic in the past. if we could just work in some simple moves - switches, loops - we could get really good.

and thank goodness soph came to play in the end. her kick-offs were great, and she nailed a conversion as well.

i got runner-up for our team's man-of-the-match (via internal voting).

the thing is, i felt like crap throughout and after the match. made so many awful mistakes - must have made at least 5 forward passes. not even dropped-balls, mind you - forward passes. i slipped off loads of tackles, and found it difficult to 'lead' the backs and get everyone in nice alignment. kept sticking myself into the rucks as well (mainly 'cos the forwards initially had trouble getting there on time), it took amy's timely yells ("get out of here!", "don't get into the rucks!", "get out of the maul!", "stay out as a flyhalf!") to remind me that i was getting it wrong. i don't feel like i played flyhalf well.

so i was utterly bewildered with the post-match comments that i got - ranging from "you played well" to "i thought you were on good form today" to praises on my ball-handling - oh the f***ing irony.

it came to point where i asked myself, hey did i really play as badly as i thought i did?.

yes i bloody did! if i'd played like that back in s'pore i'd have been plucked off the field and given an earful from certain people.

on the way home from sportsnite (every wednesday at the union's 2ndfloor bar) i sorted out my thinking: there's the standard i expect from myself, then there's the standard expected by my teammates.

the gap between these two benchmarks is huge. but it's the first one that truly matters.

i really enjoy rugby here, it's just a different and novel experience. and the weather is awesome for physical activity - you just don't sweat (actually you probably do, but it all evaporates so quickly..), and i'd rather play in a cold and drier clime than in hot and humid conditions anytime. equally important is the nice camaraderie in the club - some of the seniors can be mistaken for bimbos, but they're actually very nice. whenever i get a bit down (some things aren't going well here - my essay writing, i for instance! and i feel a bit disconnected from my coursemates, and it makes me unhappy) i know i've got rugby to look forward to, and it keeps me going.

this dependency that i have on rugby - it's like a drug isn't it? it keeps you going, but what do you do when it's gone?