I had the good fortune of visiting my brother over the holidays in Wales the week before Christmas. Secretly, the real reason was to go and see the derby matches between the Welsh regional rugby teams. I was lucky enough to have tickets to see all four regions play each other during the course of the weekend: the Scarlets v. Blues and Dragons v. Ospreys . It was a wonderful experience and some exciting rugby... especially the Dragons v. Ospreys match. I am not much of a travel story writer, but if you bare with me, this story has some relationship to girls rugby in Wisconsin (at least tangentially).
When I arrived in Wales, I received the most through interrogation from any border security guard that i have ever received. What is the purpose of your visit? A vacation. The border guard was very suspicious that anyone would be taking a holiday to Wales in December. This kicked off a long interrogation. What do you plan to do in Wales, exactly? I plan to watch rugby matches. The guard then forced me to recount the names of teams, the dates of matches and the stadiums I would be visiting to prove my case for entry. At the end of the interrogation, he snorted and added, "I didn't even think there was rugby in the U.S." When I explained that the U.S. is the reigning Olympic gold medal champions and that we defeated France in France for the honor, he let me through with a laugh.
On Saturday, I took an hour train ride out to Llanelli to watch the Scarletts play the Blues. There was no easy way from the train station to the brand new, and quite impressive stadium. After wandering around downtown Llanelli for a bit (and I regret that I didn't take the time to stop and try the local cuisine -- evidently Llanelli is famous for its cockles), I eventually found a taxi and headed over to watch the match. Quickly identifying my strange accent, the driver asked where I was from and what I was doing in Wales in December. I informed the driver that I was from Wisconsin and that I came all this way to see a rugby match or two. "Oh, WisconsinTon [sic], I didn't know there was rugby there" was the reply.
The taxi dropped me off at the Parc y Scarletts and I went in to the will-call office to collect my tickets, but the front office could not find them. There was a moment of complete panic when the ticket agent gave up looking and said, sorry there's just no ticket here for you. Luckily, one of the other ticket agents leaned over and confirmed that yes, she remembered selling me a ticket over the phone as I was the guy with the strange accent from the USA. She remembered selling me a ticket because she thought at the time, how odd, there's no rugby in the USA. So, with a little extra effort, the ticket was located.
With the ticket finally in hand, I settled in to watch the match. I had stand-in tickets, standing at a railing just a few yards from the pitch, watching the match. I was surrounded by a good natured group of Scarlets fans. Eventually, the topic of the accent and being from the USA did come up. And, of course, the woman next to me kindly explained how rugby in the U.S. was cr-p. Then, she added, but women's rugby in the U.S., now that's phenomenal. All I could say was, yeah, I know.
So, next time you take the field to play high school girls rugby in Wisconsin, you should know that you are playing rugby in a country renowned for its women's rugby worldwide and that, even in one of the home nations of rugby (where the very existence of men's rugby in the U.S. is constantly questioned), those who know and play women's rugby have tremendous respect for the caliber of our play. I think we should all be proud of the little parts we play in the grass-roots efforts that make this possible.
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