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Question # 16
16. What the hell is rugby? What the hell is American Gridiron?
Rugby LEAGUE son, the greatest game of all.....
An old aussie song ......
Whether you're on the cricket ground, lang park or the bush.
You still gotta run, you still gotta tackle,
And the scrums have got the same push,
Ummmpppphhhh
You're playing Rugby League football,
The greatest game of all.
I played rugby league from 8 years old to 18 years old.
Enjoyed it immensely, but repeated shoulder dislocations meant I had to take a year off, or have a reconstruction, which then, 21 years ago, was not a walk in the park like today, so I took a year off.
Or so I thought.
3 months into football season, I was GAGGING for it.
And then came my excuse.. a story in the Daily Paper about a guy who wanted to start an American Gridiron competition.
I had seen 2-3 Superbowls on TV (and that was IT), so I considered myself a somewhat expert and just KNEW that I could not possible hurt my shoulder in all those pads, and I rang the guy.
8 weeks later the first ever American Football game was held here.
WITH NO PADS AT ALL !!!
We played the first season, 4 teams, round robin, and never so much as wore a shin pad.
FULL contact.
CRAZY AUSSIES......
I played fullback and middle linebacker.
I dislocated my shoulder 3 times again in that season, but I was firmly hooked.
Played on and off for 7 more years as a linebacker (middle if I was fat and unfit, outside if was cut and firing) until my shoulder finally packed it in and off to the Orthopaedic Surgeon's knife I went.
I played in the first ever Queensland and Australian teams, as first string linebacker and defensive captain, and won the first ever South Pacific Championship, played in Auckland in 1991.
In my first season not playing I coached juniors (like your high school junior varsity/varsity in combination), and defensive coached the State Junior team to the first ever junior national title.
Good memeories, all those.
Well, not the surgery :-)
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