 |
| Queensland Reds Warming Up |
The hours we whiled away in front of TV at home, in pubs and at friends' houses watching our favourite sport were too many to count.
We have spent thousands of dollars on Bledisloe Cup tickets, World Cup tickets, season tickets and airline tickets.
I knew the name of every All Blacks player, as well as those of the Wallabies side and the Waratahs. Will would be chatting to someone while watching the game at our local and shout across the room, "Shelly, what's the name of that guy on that team; you know, he has brown hair." And I would promptly pluck, from the vast database in my head, the name he was seeking.
We have leapt for joy when our team scored, and we have hung our heads and cried when the game was lost in the last seconds due to a lucky kick for goal.
MasterSeven's first exposure to a rugby match was at three weeks old when we took him to see the Waratahs. Then at the tender age of three months, we conned a trusted friend into watching over our bundle, whilst we attended a World Cup match.
Nowadays, I couldn't, in good conscience, put rugby down as one of my interests in my profile, because it has been that long since I was able to watch any. The contributing factors are:
- Most of the rugby matches throughout the season are not on free-to-air, so we would have to go out to a pub or club to view them on Pay TV.
- We have no babysitters on which we can foist our offspring.
- North Queenslanders prefer other codes of football, so there are not as many opportunities to watch live rugby as there were in Sydney.
- We just don't have the disposable income we used to.
So, it was a sad state of affairs when we attempted to watch the Queensland Reds vs the Canterbury Crusaders last night at Barlow Park.
It has been so long since I watched the Crusaders, who, by the way, were MY TEAM, that I couldn't tell the difference between the uniforms; they were both red. The crowd was a sea of red, with supporters for both sides in red. The only way you could tell who was supporting whom, was by listening for when they cheered.
Because we wanted the boys to have the experience of going to a live rugby match, knowing full well that this opportunity mightn't come up again in a very long time, we purchased tickets for our family of four, plus an extra two so our mate could bring his seven-year-old. This never eventuated for a number of reasons, and we ended up taking his seven-year-old and an eight-year-old son of another friend of ours. Huh?! How did that happen?
So then, Will and I were at the rugby match with four boisterous boys, who were actually quite well behaved for the majority of the match, it was only near the end that the boredom started to set in, and they started to act their age.
MasterFive, however, was bored within minutes of arriving, after promptly finishing off his hot chips and lemonade. I attempted to explain to him what was happening on the field, but I am in no way a rugby commentator, so it went a bit like this, "See that guy in red there? He is going to pick up the ball and pass it to that other guy in red. Oh look! The guy in red took it off him and passed it to the other guy in red." or "Look at how high this guy is going to jump up to get the ball, that is called the 'lineout', can you say 'lineout'?" Blank look. "Never mind, here have my camera to play with."
So, with an eagle eye on the three older boys (three lemonades were knocked over, one pie dropped in a lap and half a hot dog lost in between the seats), and the other on my youngest who was busy pushing every button on my precious camera, no rugby was watched by me.
The only way I knew that my favourite team got TROUNCED was when the crowd cheered each time a member of the Reds team crossed the line, ball tucked firmly in the crook of an arm.
Even though the rugby experience has changed for us, afterwards, Will and I agreed that we were glad that we took the boys to their first rugby match (at least first one where they were old enough to focus their eyes), but now that they have had this chance, if the opportunity to see a live rugby match ever arises again, we'll be spending their ticket money on a babysitter.
Here are a few of the pics MasterFive took with my camera.
Widget by Css Reflex | TutZone
