Rugby!

Today another first...my first rugby match! And was it ever cool. We thought we'd start by joining some folks for a pre-match picnic outside the stadium. It sounded like a great idea. Allen brought some beers, and I brought some melt-in-your mouth Brillat Savarin cheese, some delicious chevre, & two fresh baguettes. Unfortunately, the people that "host" the picnic went to another local game earlier and had their picnic there. With no picnic to join, we just made our own--right outside gate Z. And it was de-lish.

Once inside we found our seats. Allen's friend who got us the tix is a rugby fiend (she's from Ireland), and she got us tickets in the supporters section, so we were on row 10. As in tenth row from the field. Excellent, and for only 7 euros each! Next it was time for my intro to rugby. For starters, I was wondering what all the pink was about. Turns out it's the Paris team's color! Pink! For a sports team. Ha...would never find that in the US...not for a men's team anyway. And believe it or not, for ONCE I was actually wearing the right color. I had pulled out a pink scarf for some reason, and it was even the right shade of pink. See post-match picture for proof.

(Yes, I took the picture of myself so you could see just how perfect my scarf was!)

Next were the pre-match antics. We had missed most of these as we were outside enjoying our picnic, but what we did catch was...confusing. Again, pix for illustration follow, but here's what we saw. Girls in red feathered outfits doing a little dance. Looked to me like they'd gotten lost on the way to the Moulin Rouge. People dressed in...Star Wars outfits. First were the storm troopers. Next came the jedis (I'm no Star Wars fan, so if I'm calling someone the wrong name, desolee). This parade of characters included a giant rugby ball (looked like an egg to me) standing on end and making its way to the center of the field. Once it arrived, the ball/egg opened, and who do you think was hanging out inside? That's right...Darth Vader. He looked around a bit, then the whole gang of star warriors left the field and made a lap around the outside of the field--in front of the seats. Then there was the guy on the motorbike that rode around the outside of the field a few times as smoke bombs went off all around the field. "Pow! Pow! Pow! Vroom, vroom, vroom!" Finally, right before the match began, there were gold streamers released and pink and blue blower things waving in the air. (see below.) And what does any of this have to do with rugby? Seriously, I still have no idea. It was random...and hilarious.

The fans cheered and waved giant pink flags, then the match began. The boys in pink (and blue, but mostly pink) came onto the field, and their opponents, the Clermont team, in yellow and blue came out. The match itself was really interesting. It's fun to watch and quite a bit different from either soccer or American football. It went by incredibly fast--two halves of 40 mins each and a brief half-time, and the game started at 4:30 and ended at 6:15. Amazing! I couldn't believe it when it was over! They rarely stop the clock or the match, and there's no constant coaching going on. They get out on the field, and they PLAY! Hard.

(Check out the huddle under the pink goal post. They don't have their pink shirts on b/c this was pre-match, but you can see their pink socks and the next one shows a few of the players in full uniform...no pads either!)

(I've included this one so you can see the players in their full uniforms, but you can also see the jedi people doing their walkaround as the game begins...weird.)

The fans are great, and if it weren't for all of the French that you heard--from fight songs, to chants, to random chatter and the smoking in the stands (I mean, c'mon, really?), they could be mistaken for US football fans. Except that so many were wearing pink. But one thing that struck me as funny was that they don't necessarily cheer when American fans would cheer. For example, they cheer when their team scores, but they don't cheer when the opponent fails to score. There's a little teasing among the fans, but it's very civilized. And they are VERY happy when their team wins. And very civilized when their team loses, if a little sad looking.

Paris led the game up until the last ten or fifteen minutes, then Clermont came out ahead & won. Bummer for my pink friends. After the match, there were fireworks, and they were pretty great. They were right there on the field, so I tried to take a picture but it was just smoke. Yes, THAT close. But very cool.

So we left, Paris defeated but not deflated. And as we made our way to the metro station, we realized that there was no way we were getting on a train any time soon. Apparently the few capitalists in Paris have made the most of this reality and have opened up state fair like tents selling food and beer post-match. Very cool, but we decided to walk around a little and see what we could find. We found a tea salon & had some mint tea and a little pastry, and about an hour later when we made our way back to the metro station, we had no trouble getting on a train and heading home.

It was a lot of fun, and I'll definitely go back. Enjoy the crazy pics!