Sport

Having spent half my weekend watching sport (all three matches in the Six Nations rugby) and half the Superbowl, I thought we'd start a sport thread.

I find sport only equal to politics and religion for the amount of ill-will it can bring a forum, so let's tread carefully.

Limited winding-up allowed, as long as you can take it! And no outright hostility please...

Ok, my dad's Irish, so I've only ever supported one rugby team:

These guys. This is Paul O'Connell. Rugby is split between big powerful guys whose job is to thump into the opposition (forwards) and small(ish) quick guys whose job it is to get the ball from hand to hand (backs). O'Connell is a forward.

Here he is catching at a 'lineout'. When the ball goes out, the opposing team gets to throw it back in between the two lines of forwards, who contest to catch it.

Quite why this issue only had O'Connell and not his equivalent in the backs, the Irish talisman Brian O'Driscoll, I'm not quite sure.

Ireland won the entire Six Nations tournament in 2009, beating everyone (known as a Grand Slam). This had not been done by Ireland since 1948. My FIRST phone call on the Monday morning was to An Post asking if there would be stamps... No.

Edited By Julia Lee on 04/02/2013 10:17:11

And much as this pains me, here's the MS Royal Mail issued when England won the Rugby World Cup in 2003.

This is the one that REALLY kicked off the 'identifiable living people' thing, in a fudge that pleased no one. The chap breaking the circle in top right is captain Martin Johnson, and that's him holding the cup, too (you can tell by the way he strapped his hands). In the bottom right, though they're facing the other way, there are numbers on their backs, which make them: Jason Robinson, Lawrence Dallaglio, Trevor Woodman, Steve Thompson and Phil Vickery.

Why, you really do know your Rugby!

Way too painful to watch all of it (not much fun supporting the neverending underdog!) but I did see some of it, and I saw France lose to italy. That will have hurt!

Here they are in better days:

I hate this sheet because it don't fit in my stock book, so I have to display it on its side. But it's good for practising one's French rugby words!

What I like about that sheet is that, even though rugby is almost always refereed internationally in English, the only 'English' style word is 'supporteurs'. I don't believe for one second there isn't a more French word.

Oh, and I had to cross-reference the names with the numbers on Wikipedia - I'm not THAT good.

Since Junior High I personally have never seen the sweaty appeal of contact sports. Ugh!

I did, however, enjoy playing baseball as a kid and I still have my 'ol glove and ball somewhere. More refined than soccer, rugby or American football, more exciting than cricket, baseball is a real Ivy League sport.

Kids raising the red dust.....

Hitting the big time....

Popular past time in the big eastern cities....

I'm sure if I'd been forced to play rugby at secondary school, I'd hate it the way I do hockey...

Go Mariners! (The Seattle baseball team).

England vs Scotland Rugby game postmark, 1984.

Very nice! I like the rose/thistle design.