Things I learnt watching State of Origin

Before moving here I had no idea what the State of Origin was. I'd never heard of it. Since then I've learned that it's a series of 3 rugby games played between NSW and Queensland. The rivalry runs deep between these states. But the strange thing is that the players don't usually play together except for these games. They are normally in a range of different state and national teams and most would be regularly playing against rather than with each other.

Today is the second match. Queensland won the first one so NSW is tense. There are a number of rugby fans in our community so there's usually a bunch of people watching it together. I've joined them this year and have learnt some things about this odd sport.

To move forwards the players have to pass backwards. Seems counterintuitive.  Apparently the Americans still don't understand it.

When someone had been tackled they buck their legs around as if to say "Abuse! Abuse! I'm being abused!"

Before the first guy passes the ball off he taps it on his foot. I'm told that this is a memorial to actually kicking the ball. Yet the game still gets called football.

Each team only gets six tackles and then the ball is turned over to the other team. So before this happens someone will kick the ball as far down the field as they can in a last ditch effort to ensure the other team has further to run back the other way to get to their goal line.

A try by itself is worth 4 points. Don't ask me why, it just is. Like a goal in AFL is worth 6 points. It just is.

Everyone has giant thighs.

Run forward, not sideways. If you get stopped by a tackle it doesn't matter. You think like a team, not like an individual. And you think more than one play at a time.

It's all about piling on the guy with the ball.

Every so often there will be a symbolic scrum where a bunch of players get in a huddle and then break apart without doing anything.

Rugby is mostly about running. But you can stop running and kick a goal almost whenever you want. This is called a field goal.  This is probably the only reason that Rugby League can ever be called football. 

Possible cracked or broken rib? No worries. Painkillers and you're right to go back on.

I'm sure there's more I'll learn but I'm gonna get back to watching now!

Thankful Thursday

Here we are at Thursday again.  I’m particularly thankful that we are because it means that my last assignment for the semester is finished!  Here are some of the other things I’m thankful for this week:

Growing things
On the weekend I did a bit of work weeding in my veggie patch and was excited to see that some of the seeds I had planted a few weeks (or months? I can’t remember) ago have started coming up.  I have some carrots (I think…) and some kale growing next to my exploding tomato plants, and a few little cucumber seedlings have popped their heads up too.  It has been rewarding being able to eat some of the things we’ve grown ourselves and seeing little seedlings emerge makes me marvel again at how intricately God has made his creation.  All I do is plant and water (and even then I don’t do it very well!) but God is the one who makes it all grow.  I’m thankful most of all for this and the opportunity that the veggie patch has given me to marvel again at God’s creation and to participate in some of his creative work. 

Forgiven failings
On Sunday afternoon J and I played tennis with some people from church.  This is a semi-regular thing, happening every few months.  Now I say ‘played’ tennis… I’m sure that’s what J was doing but I’m not sure I was.  I’ve never been very interested in tennis, though I don’t mind watching bits of the Australian Open each year.  Mum and Dad would try to teach my sister and I whenever we visited the local tennis courts but we weren’t very committed.  So I found myself flailing for the ball on Sunday and apologising to my partner whenever I missed it.  But I am so thankful that I could still have fun despite my abysmal tennis, and that my partner and opponents also had fun.  (I’m also thankful that I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t that great at tennis.)

Resolutions from assignments
I wasn’t going to talk about my assignment but I realised that aside from being thankful that it is finished, I’m also thankful for what I will take out of it.  This assignment was for my preaching subject.  We had to reflect on what we had learned about preaching, about feedback, our strengths and weaknesses and plans to improve our preaching.  The two things I resolved to start doing to help improve my preaching was to work out the fallen-condition focus of the passage and to pray for understanding of the passage.  Now, I don’t get many opportunities to preach (not that I’m complaining!) so there’s not much opportunity to put these things into practice.  So I resolved to do these things in my personal Bible reading time.  I’ve often struggled with personal Bible reading, making it more than just reading to tick a box but not taking it in.  So I’m thankful that through this assignment I have made some resolutions that will hopefully not only help me the next time I come to write a sermon, but will help me in a very practical way in understanding the Bible. 

What are you thankful for this week?

Things I learnt at* the cricket

On Sunday I went to the cricket.  It was the first outdoor professional sporting event I'd ever been to. 

Since marrying J I've slowly been learning the rules of cricket.  I learnt what the score means (the number of people out and the number of runs scored so far), what an over is (six bowls of the ball) and why some bowlers have a run-up and others don't (fast versus spin bowlers).  But I've never been really interested in watching the cricket on TV for more than a few minutes so I was a little apprehensive about going to a live game for 6+ hours.  I didn't really know much about how it all worked.

So here are some of the quirks of cricket from a relative newbie to the game. 

The bowler would die if he had to bowl consecutive overs (more than six bowls).  J's words.  Bowling is hard work.

In getting the ball back to the bowler everyone  on the team (okay, maybe not the outfielders) *must* touch the ball.  This means it is thrown around to all the fielders (perhaps for catching and throwing practice?).  Sometimes even the umpire is included in this fun!

It doesn't matter if you don't hit the ball, you can still run.  Here I was thinking that hitting the ball was the whole point.

Australians drink a lot of beer.  I should have known this already. 

Only the batter who hit the ball gets to count the runs against his name.  But the other batter still has to run unless he wants to get run out.

There are certain times in the game when only a small number of fielders are allowed near the boundary.  Everyone else has to stand nearer to the pitch in the "inner circle" (my words).  This means that you're more likely to see bigger hits or more wickets.  It's really just a rule to make the game more exciting.  It's called a power play. 

The crowd is rubbish at catching the ball.  I guess that's why it's so exciting when it does happen.  To be fair, the ball isn't hit into the crowd very often. 

Left handers make things harder. (sorry everyone).

A Mexican wave is very hard to start.  But when it gets going it's fun to watch it go all the way around the circular stadium.  Sometimes it goes around more than once, or even twice.  Hitting a six effectively stops a Mexican wave. 

Sometimes the wicket keeper doesn't wear his helmet.  Instead he sits it on the ground about five metres behind him.  (This happens when the bowler is a fast bowler and the wicket keeper stands a very long way behind the wicket, for obvious reasons).

The wicket keeper does literally 300 squats a match.  Imagine how strong his legs must be.

When a fielder catches someone out his whole team will run to him from all over the field for a big group hug. I love this camaraderie. 

Don't look at the light.

The third umpire is the slow-mo technology.  (J told me later that there is actually a person behind this technology, a real third umpire who makes a decision based on the slow-mo.  It was more fun thinking that the actual tech was the third umpire.)

The human body is amazing.  We can throw a ball at 148 km an hour!  (Well perhaps not all of us.)

To play (international/professional) cricket you have to know how to slide on grass, roll for a catch, hit the ball while spinning around, catch and throw the ball while running, and throw really, really, ridiculously long.

I think I like cricket now.

 

*I did already know some of these things from J's previous lessons.