Rugby Union

. . . which is apparently different than rugby league. Rules are different, or somesuch. I'm trying to educate myself via Wikipedia articles. It's tricky reading. I don't understand even the most basic terminology. For example: what the devil is a scrum, and why is it awarded? What does such an awarding do? Does it count for a point value? Scrum is used like, every other sentence!

ANYWAY, I've officially committed to the rugby union team! Even better, one of the already-established players gave me some idea of what the coaches will try to craft me into (she said I couldn't count on ending up there, but that they'd at least try). It's a position called scrum half, and is apparently the domain of those players of, shall we say, diminuitive stature (she started our conversation by asking how tall I was, okay?). The girl I was talking to, who is either barely taller or barely shorter than I am, is currently the team's only scrum half due to graduation losses of the other two.

According to my intensive research, scrum half is something like the rugby equivalent of center mid in soccer, or maybe halfback. With the former, I at least understand the gist of the cruciality of the position--must read the field, have endurance, and be able to sprint when necessary--and I played the latter position for nearly all my years in soccer (so I have more than the gist of what is expected in that area). Of course, this means I should work sprint workouts into by conditioning routine, which I was already expecting to include endurance. I learned something new, though. In rugby tournaments, you can only make a limited number of substitutions: i.e. seven. That means that at least eight of the players on the field will play for the entire 80 minutes of game time. So endurance is required of EVERYBODY.