Glasgow Kiss...French Kiss...French Rugby Kiss?!

This is me lagging behind in the warm-up. Our pre-match warm-up lasts about half an hour and is much more intense than anything I had been accustomed to. The absolute need for everyone to be so close in our jog that toes get stood on and calves get cut is frustrating. The 2 minutes before the start will be spent in an extremely small square in which the backs occupy the middle, in a close group with the forwards circling. When the coach shouts something, each forward picks a back and has to full-on wrestle him out of the square. Occasionally we will do a similar drill where everyone is moving around the square and a forward then has to smash a back, just hunt one down and nail him.


I had read Gregor Townsend's tales of the forwards having to trample over the backs who were lying defenceless on the changing room floor. But surely, I had thought, that wouldn't happen these days, in an under 19 team, in Paris, far from the Brive/Castres hinterland which Toony writes of. Well, I haven't been trampled on, but when the Coach starts to head-butt the hooker in the pre-match huddle, 1) I fear for my safety and 2) I know which country and rugby culture I am in.