I Think I'm Going To Be A Rugby Fan!

This weekend I attended a Women’s World Cup Rugby 7s qualifying tournament in Kampala consisting of the national teams from Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tunisia, and Cote d’ Ivoire. In between matches the local men’s rugby teams also played, meaning that there was a consistent stream of rugby for two straight days. I’ll be honest, I mostly went because I enjoy sitting outside watching sporting events (and many of the Ugandan rugby fans are a rowdy but fun group of South African expats that I enjoy hanging out with), but I ended up really enjoying the actual sport of rugby! And I got to witness the Ugandan women’s national team qualify for the World Cup which was very exciting (in spite of the fact that South Africa slaughtered them in the final…)

The Ugandan women's national rugby team celebrating their World Cup qualification

Now for the sake of full disclosure, I will tell you that my knowledge of rugby is limited. I know it’s sort of like football and sort of like soccer, that the South African men’s team are the current world champs, that rugby teams have funny (and not even remotely menacing) mascot nicknames like the “All Blacks” the “Springboks” or the “Wallabies,” that a South African rugby player named Percy Montgomery has great hair, and… well, yeah, that’s about it. And after an entire day of watching the sport, I can honestly say that I still don’t know much more than that. But I do know that it’s enjoyable to watch people run around kicking and tossing each other in the air and tackling one other and I plan to attend more games. These new exotic sports are fun—next weekend I’m taking on the exciting world of cricket!

Two Kampala men's teams-the Heathens and the Cobs (see, NOT menacing mascots!)- duke it out in between women's games.