Shiver shiver

This might be the coldest I've even been. Like the very core of my body is made of Piggelin. I was so cold I couldn't even be properly happy after the final whistle when we'd won our first game of the season! It took hours of hot water, 5 layers, full blast car heating, microwaveable pillows and a fiancé to bring me back to life...
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Glad we didn't play Exiles away today - unofficial rules at Årstafältet apparently give the men's first team unlimited access to the only changing room with working showers. For listening to music and complimenting eachothers muscles BEFORE their game that is...despite any number of ladies teams waiting to clean up AFTER their battle.

Comeback

Ja jävlar. Ska det vara så svårt att göra comeback i sin egen blogg?

Tackles - no thanks!?

I felt great yesterday! Our Sävja session included both rucking and mauling - how I’ve been waiting for this! Managed to work myself up to proper rugby rage and eventually started bellowing instructions right, left and centre so as to get things happening (preferably my way).

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I wasn’t always this fond of contact training. In fact, I remember vividly my first ever tackle experience and how big a brain freeze I got just then. It was early spring 2007 and I’d been on the team for a few months during winter season, practicing ball handling and playing touch. I’d FINALLY realised what Bettan wanted when she was screaming DEEP, go DEEP for heaven’s sake! (and was pretty pleased with that too). In the middle of our touch session, coach Richard suddenly shouted OK, full contact now everyone!

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WHAT!?

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The killer faces on these people when they were suddenly allowed to take eachother down! God, that scared the shit out of me… For the next ten minutes I was skulking around in the background, pretending to be planning my next move but really just desperately hoping that no one would come up with the stupid idea to pass the ball to me. It wasn’t even tackling someone else that was my biggest fear – it was being tackled. After training I cried because I was so disappointed with myself. Why did I suddenly become such a bloody delicate flower when, a year earlier, I was perfectly happy to have people kick me in the face down at the dojo? (Well, at least happy to have them try…)

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My point is, even if you think you don’t have it in you to start with, even if you’re scared of hurting someone else or just reluctant to let five teammates pile up on top of you, you can start to love it. Just like I did.

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(By the way - I haven't seen the men's team do tackle training since...ever. Are ya' scared? No wonder that opponents slip through the defense!)

The launch of a new PR-era

I think 2012 seems to be the start of a new era. Once again the ladies team has found itself lacking numbers and experience (it's an every-other-year thing) and the club as a whole has lost both it's big sources of income (the bandy finals and the reggae festival). No money and no players - clearly, something needs to be done.

As a first step towards something else (wherever that might be) the club has decided to work harder to get noticed. So far we've seen public displays of lineouts and recruiting at a shopping center, flyers put up in town and this old blog of course. Two fairly new additions to our PR network is the registration on Sportwire, where we can put video clips up from training, games or the likes and hopefully get noticed, and our Facebook page - brand spanking new!

This weekend our club house was full (yes, FULL) with people celebrating St Patrick's and watching the last round of 6 nations. I think it's a good omen.

Håckes Cup 2012

So a couple of Uppsala ladies went down to Växjö and Håckes Cup. Big deal.

But hang on a minute... Why are they dressed in black and white? And how the hell did they manage to pick up a southern accent in just two days!? Ok, it goes like this:

When Uppsala tried to sign up for this tournament they realised they were too late (by months). It was jam-packed with quicker thinking teams and those of us who'd hoped to play in blue stripes had to let that idea go. When we found out there was a window of opportunity to participate as guest players for the Trelleborg team some of us were tempted. As we're not holding a grudge against any penguins whatsoever we decided to go black and white for the weekend - and it turned out to be a good choice!

Apart from meeting a bunch of new gals and quickly getting relaxed around eachother (sorry I didn't lift you in the lineout, had to improvise because I was dying for a shit...) we experienced several memorable moments.

1) Realising that you can still have a try denied by the ref for unsportsmanlike conduct. Gothenburg, what were you thinking?

2) Being put in the scrum together, because the props in the first half claimed we needed some "bigger and stronger" girls in there. (None of us can boast more weight than 65 kg, incidentally only half the size of Scotlands no 4 Richie Gray)

3) Hearing yourself unintentionally scream in the worst imitation of a Skåne accent ever!

I expect we would also have heard a lot more screaming and swearing from the stands if this wasn't the case from time to time:

Lunchtime, sunday

Rugby men don't respect women

Rugby men don't respect women. In fact, the whole rugby culture is degrading to women. So I've been told. Interestingly enough, I've never been told this by a woman actually involved in rugby, neither have I had this epiphany myself. The men's team and the ladies' team seem to appreciate working together, training together, drinking together and watching eachother play games.

Honestly, yes, some of the guys might be way nicer to random flirts at a club than their actual spouses - but does this have anything to do with rugby? I'm convinced these people would be lying and cheating even if they were ballet dancers. And more importantly, these people aren't always men! Truth to be told, yes, there's also the type that seem to go through a constant stream of interchangeable partners, more interested in exploring the physical world than the rest. But again, does it have anything to do with rugby? And just to be clear, it isn't exclusively male behaviour - I'd have to say us ladies give as good as we get. Stay objective and don't confuse a respectless attitude towards monogamy with a respectless attitude towards women.

Rugby encourages women to be confident human beings, it's a sport that rewards strength, skill and speed. It demands aggression and it teaches leadership. Now that doesn't really contribute to the illusion of the weaker sex, does it?

Moi moi Oppsala

Now this was officially the WORST job for the club ever! I've been behind a bar heaving with drunks and with broken cash registers, I've carried the scrum machine into winter lodging, I've moved furniture up and down spiral cases and sold underwear to my grandparents...but none of those times was as bad as this!

To start with, none of the other jobs started at 5 in the morning... It might've snowed during the bandy bar shift, but at least there wasn't heavy traffic aiming to splatter you with sludge. The signs we were putting up today weren't heavy, but made up for it with being too small and requiring magic fingers to assemble. Cat stranglers: too short, map reading ability at early hours: not satisfactory.

Afterwards, as the Scotsman drove to work, I happened to drowse off for a few minutes. In the middle of this highly enjoyable activity, someone called my mobile and shouted They got the baby, they got the baby! Who? What? When? Yes, my sweet sambo (a royalist in secret?) decided I just could not wait any longer before finding out about Sweden's new princess... After hanging up, the info in this phonecall came back to me in my half-dreams, weirdly mixed with the work we'd just done, and I later had to message my friend Hawkeye, who's girlfriend is due in a couple of weeks: You know, I dreamt about you guys tonight. You suddenly got 15 babies in the back seat of your car on the hard shoulder of Bärbyleden! He seemed a bit frightened.