Pre-Holiday Elated Ramblings

Two of my wingers now have facebook profile pictures where they are in drag. ‘nuff said.

I went for my first French hair cut this week. This began awkwardly, with me explaining that I didn’t feel my French was good enough to describe the sort of haircut I wanted. He understood that he was to go slowly and keep asking questions. I helped him with this by regularly running my hand through my hair, looking doubtful until he asked, at which point I would direct his next move. He spent five minutes at the beginning thumbing through yesterday’s Parisien to find an article on Racing, proudly presenting it to me as he started to hack away at my sideburns. We got there in the end, proud that I can walk the streets shame-free. The middle-aged Korean in my class thought it was a bit ‘militaire’ which was well wide of the mark and a sad indictment on the Korean military.

It’s hard to deny that immediately before a holiday, la vie est belle. But today, I’m not sure if it was all that, I just felt comfortable, chilled in a way that I have felt more and more in the last month. For a start it was at least 25 degrees Celsius with not a cloud in the sky. I finished my final French class before the holidays, wearing an outrageous pair of shorts which revealed a pair of knees quite offensive to many of my class. I then headed into the club, admiring south Antony in the sun and oh so pleased that the large poster advertising an erotica exhibition has been changed to something else. My British sensibilities were being offended and it was simply too much in the early morning.

Left to my own devices to kick I passed a very pleasant 45 minutes going through the usual Friday routine with every kick I might need, never running for a ball, just pacing around the pitch in my own time, enjoying the shape of the ball and its bounces and occasionally scoring a brilliant try after a chip and gather and a step, as is my wont when no one is watching. When I start acting like this, it’s a sure sign that I am enjoying my rugby, such a difference from when I detested the very sight of the oval ball and only touched it when absolutely necessary.

I met one of the new players today, a Fijian brought in to cover for the injury to Juan Martin Hernandez. This 20 year old, brought up in England got a bit of a shock when I said “Alright” so he made the most of an English speaker. His last club was...Exeter. “Nice part of the world”, “Yeah, so I’m told...”

While watching the espoirs going through their team-run I was thinking about earlier on in the season when I thought I might have got moved up from the under 19s and was worrying about the standard etc and being out of my depth. But then it dawned on me that I was never going to be moved up. I was brought here to be the crabos stand-off. They realised they had a very talented generation but no stand-off, so I was lucky to come along at the right time to bag myself this whole gig. So my job is to facilitate the players around me. The club benefit from all that, and the benefits to me are evident. My development as a player, while important, hasn’t been looked at with a long-term view as it has with some of my mates who are sticking around. That’s fair enough, the crabos is a stepping stone for them in a way it isn’t for me, at least from a Racing point of view. Had I indicated that I would be staying then this would be different.

Here’s a quote from an unnamed pro: “France. Crazy people, crazy rugby, crazy country. The only good thing is the money.”