Stretched, Refreshed, and Playing By Myself

Since returning to Paris two weekends ago, a physical and mental rut had set in. Maybe I was all rugby-ed out, but my hip, injured in October, was causing me some bother. So after a lot of stretching over the past 10 days, today I put my boots on, took a ball and just went out and played by myself. Thursday is a fairly light day so after doing some weights and running on the treadmill, I laced up. There is something very fun, amongst all the drills and coaches talk and ways of catching the ball, in just going out and grubbering the ball around, throwing high passes to yourself, sidestepping imaginary defenders after extragavant dummies and taking the occasional drop at goal. There was no one around to hear my sound effects as I burned some poor made-up soul.

And so after a short period which my teammates would call ‘nul’, I’m feeling refreshed for the weekend. It is, after all, a long season and there will inevitably be peaks and troughs, mentally and physically. Maybe the best thing to do is not to fight them, let them work themselves out. This promises to be an excellent weekend as the family come to Paris. Arguably the biggest game of our weekend will be at the Stade de France as I get to unashamedly flaunt my nationality without feeling like a weirdo. Doubts have been raised at the club as to whether I will actually wear my kilt when it’s so cold, but I don’t think they really understand. The kilt will be worn and pictures taken to prove it. If Scotland win, it won’t come off for days.

The second match of the weekend is versus Bobigny up at Colombes. We beat Bobigny earlier in the season when I had a fanclub in the stand too (James). At the time, I had my best game of the season so hopefully the same will happen in another bonus point win.

The hot/cold baths are where I’ve enjoyed some of my best conversations with people. Today it was the turn of the espoirs stand-off, a really nice guy who was in my situation last year in playing for the crabos. We talked about everything from international rugby to the club (and who’s leaving and staying) to what we were having for dinner. He told me he was from Alsace to which I said something about the turbulent history of that area. Apparently some French still think it is part of Germany. I mumbled something about the town of Berwick being English/Scottish etc. but I don’t think it really stood up for comparison with Alsace-Lorraine, so I shut up...