Wow! What an exciting weekend in Pittsburgh. The guys got back a couple of hours ago. I have been mulling the weekend around in my head during the long 8 hour drive back from PA. I will attempt to regurgitate my remembrances.
I arrived at the hotel about 10:30 Thursday night. Thy boys were just returning from their extended bus ride (via Washington DC.), check in at Founders Field, and dinner. They looked tired getting off the bus. Linda had all of the room keys ready and the boys quickly disappeared to sleep.
The first game of the day was at 11:30 against the Highland Rugby (Juggernaut) Team (http://highlandrugby.net/index.php/home). There was speculation (amongst the parents) that the boys were apprehensive about playing the best team in high school (U-19) rugby.
It was a beautiful day for Rugby… ~80 deg and sunny. The boys were stunned when the Highland team scored within the first 2 minutes of the game. The 8 man for Highland was clearly from “out of town” (more on this later). He was clearly of Maori descent and was described by Willem as a “man-beast” after the match. The boys shook off the shock, and stood up against the goliath. The game ended with a 31-15 loss. A woman came up to me (I was wearing my 2007 Highlanders T-shirt) to ask how the game went. When I told her that we lost 31-15, her eyes got big and she said “That’s good!”. No team scored a try against Highland the entire tournament. The Highlanders scored two try’s (Jonathan and Sebastian? – See Richards blog for the specifics) and one penalty kick by Graham! In addition, on the Highland web site, the most points scored off Highland this year were by the North Carolina Highlanders.
The guys lounged at the pitch until the afternoon game against the LA Cougars. The afternoon game was disappointing. The boys came out flat and lost a tough game against the Cougars. They didn’t have that highlanders pop. The final score was 21-0. Although the 2 losses were disappointing, they showed the boys that they could play with any team on the pitch.
While waiting for 2nd game against the LA Cougars, I was standing next to the Ohio “Worms” fans bleacher section when one of the Grizzled Ohio ex-Coach noticed my shirt. He said that the boys played very well against the Highland team that morning. Then the conversation took a strange turn:
Grizzled Ohio ex-Coach: What did you think of #8 from the Highland team?
Doug: He looks like he is from out of town.
Grizzled Ohio ex-Coach (laughing): I would bet that you are right. I would also bet that he isn’t here next year. He may be playing Rugby back in New Zealand.
The Grizzled Ohio ex-Coach then proceeded to tell me a story which started with the history that the Highland Coach owns his own travel agency, travels to New Zealand often, ..Maori youth are recruited using new paper advertisements in New Zealand…the Mormons were mentioned…the Highland team has a significant number of New Zealanders playing on the team…..
Although I was not drinking yet, the story was very confusing, but ended when the grizzled ex-coach said that he could dominate the sport of rugby if he recruited his kids from the New Zealand Maori. I wonder if Coach Smith could have been recruited to the Mormon faith to play rugby in a foreign country (from New Zealand)...…oh, wait, Mormons don’t drink or curse. It would have never worked!!
When I told the Grizzled Ohio ex-Coach that we were planning to build a Mormon Tabernacle in Chapel Hill, he smiled.
Related to the Maori, Richard Jordan told me the infamous Welsh saying about playing (and getting beat by) the West Samoans in the 1990’s: “Good thing we were only playing Western Samoa. Imagine how bad we would have lost if we played all of Samoa.”
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