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As far as I can remember, I’ve only sat through a live football game once, my first semester of my freshman year at college. I did play a version of football once… but it was the kind that makes super-athletic-ball-coordinated girls cringe and guys just laugh. This “flamingo football” required the gentleman from my brother hall to hop around on one foot while the girls from my hall ran around the field like confused chickens. Two of the guys felt sorry for us and defected to our team (still hopping on one foot), finally resorting to calling out commands like “run to the other side!” and “tackle him!!” so that we would have some direction. The guys still won.
While Americans are fascinated with football, I’ve been learning that Papua New Guineans are entranced by rugby. My first encounter with this sport was watching Matt Damon hurl himself across the silver screen in Invictus.
It did not seem terribly pleasant.
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Injuries are not uncommon after a game of rugby... |
One of the more distinctive plays that separates it from American football is the scrum, where the opposing teams lock arms and heads together until they are a moving mat of players skittering back and forth as the ball is kicked out of the huddle by their feet!
Papua New Guinea plays in the Rugby League and is currently ranked 6th in the world. The team is known as the Kumuls, named after PNG’s national bird, the Bird of Paradise, and top players are treated as celebrities. According to the ever-reliable ;) Wikipedia:
“The team usually plays against the Australian national rugby league team each year in Port Moresby [PNG's capital city]. It is such a popular fixture that thousands of people can't get into the ground once its full, causing people to climb onto the stadium roof or up trees outside the ground in order to see the match. The limited capacity of the stadium for this fixture often sparks riots.”