A man, a plan, a team, World Cup.
Coach Expo and JC. Photo by JZ.
On your left is Expo Mejia, the coach of the national rugby team, the Philippine Volcanoes. When he was 12 he started playing rugby at school in Australia, taking the number 12 (inside centre) position. Rugby is fairly easy for viewers to follow because the numbers on the players’ jerseys aren’t just their lucky numbers, they correspond to their positions.
As you can see, a rugby team has room for all shapes and sizes. Looming over Coach Expo is one of his new recruits, JC Bautista. He’s Fil-American and his dad is from Zamboanga. We thought he might be a prop (no. 1 or 3), the guys in the front row of the scrum. But our friend says he will probably be a no. 8 or a second rower in the scrum (lock, no. 4 or 5)–too tall for a prop.
In any case how would you like to see JC running at you? You wouldn’t! Let’s look at JC again.
JC Bautista in Greenbelt. Photo by JZ.
Yeah! We gather he’s not the most massive guy on the team. Coach says: Size isn’t everything, but it helps.
Here’s a plausible best case scenario. The Philippines gets a good result in the test match against the full-strength Hong Kong team on April 16. We beat Korea, then Singapore or Malaysia in the A5N Division 1 championship in Seoul in May, earning promotion to the Asian Top 5. That’s the World Cup qualifying group. We are consistently in the top 2 for the next 3 to 4 years, and we play in the World Cup qualifiers. Rugby World Cup in 2015.
On the Road to the Rugby World Cup, my column today in the Philippine Star.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
April 10th, 2011 at 15:49
I gather one has to be a gentlemen to be able to play rugby. I mean you have to restrain yourself from kicking someone in the nuts after he straight-arms you in the chest while running at 20kph. In other words, bawal ang pikon. Which makes me wonder if this is a game for the average Pinoy.
(By the way, the post’s title? Puc’d dl row, ma. Et a nal. Panama. I dont get it. :-D )
April 10th, 2011 at 17:05
Good point about pikon. Also, you can’t go ‘Woohoo I scored a try!’ because several guys got clobbered for you to make it past the goal line. It requires real team effort, not one scoring machine.
April 10th, 2011 at 19:48
There’s an English saying that goes like this: “Football is a gentleman’s game played by ruffians, and rugby is a ruffian’s game played by gentlemen.”
Though in fairness to futbol fans – and to avoid being assaulted by Azkal fans, a la Angelica Panganiban – I should qualify that statement by saying that AMERICAN football (aka NFL Football) is more of a ruffian’s game than soccer itself. Mas maraming pikon doon, both on AND off the field! And let’s not even forget that American football also allows forward passing and single-person tackles, which ups the pikon factor even more so.