Saturday's a rugby day

The tournament today was more of a youth festival; score was not kept so there wasn’t a “winner” at the end of the day.  The teams were either U11 or U13 and I think some players had double duty.  The day started with 7s using a playing space that fit between the 22m line and try line.  After six 7s matches there were six 10s matches playing on half the field, and then there were four 15s matches on full field.  From the teams I refereed there were two standout individuals from different teams who, unfortunately, I did not get a chance to photograph.  I saw both of them during the 7s portion of the day.  One of them was unfairly fast for someone so young.  There was sound tackling throughout the day but when this kid had the ball with a sliver of space he would dart around anyone defenders near him.  Once he broke the first line of defense the rest of his team started heading back to mid field for kick off and this kid would run, not walk, back to midfield ready to score again.  He alone had three or four tries during the one half he played.  The other kid was not as nimble but his individual skill was head and shoulders about those around him.  His stiff arm put several defenders on the ground, he ran over a few people, made some beautiful offloads, and had a solid restart kick.  After that one match I think that young guy is going to be a Springbok one day.  My biggest take away from the day was that the kids just wanted to play rugby.  They didn’t argue with the refs, their teammates, or the other teams and they played hard for every minute of every match.  Even though the matches didn’t count for anything it was a pleasure to see these kids do their thing.

I was supposed to referee eight matches but after the seventh one my Achilles tendon was feeling so tight that I limped when I walked so I asked Ryan to do the match for me.  I propped my foot up and iced the tendon on and off for about an hour then decided to go looking for food. 

Vendors had been there all day serving food and I was pretty hungry since I had been running around all morning (the first match kicked off at 8:15a and the final match at 1p).  Marius suggested I try samoosas and pancakes.  A samosa is curried beef stuffed into a puff pastry type pocket and a pancake is a thick crepe rolled up with cinnamon and sugar.  Both were very inexpensive and pretty tasty.  I ended up having six samoosas and three pancakes.

Evan looking mighty creepy

Ryan ready for kickoff

Emily taking it all in

Samoosa

Samoosa insides

Pancake

Pancake insides

After the festival Evan and Geoff (looks unhappy about the try he just awarded) were to referee one half each of a scrimmage between the Maties U21 and U19 club sides.  Many of the players involved had already played in scrimmages earlier in the day but the U19 did not care about fatigue or age and dominated the match from start to finish.

U21 in yellow

Quick note: Emily has a personal blog here and we have a shared blog here.  Thank you for reading.