Somebody talk to me about rugby
Well, in the southern hemisphere the Super 14's just about to start its 4th round, while up in the north they're in the middle of the Six Nations tournament.
I don't really have much idea of what's happening in the Six Nations, but I think Scotland are continuing to suck and Italy just won their first Six Nations match ever or something.
In the Super 14 it's looking much the same as usual: the Bulls (defending champions, from Northern Transvaal in South Africa I think) are sitting on a maximum 15 points from their first three games - but I'm pretty sure all those games have been at home so far. South African teams traditionally don't do too well on their Australian and New Zealand tours. Two Australian teams, New South Wales (Waratahs) and the A.C.T. (Brumbies, my team) have finished their South African tours early in the season and now face a long string of home games, which should put them in a good position. New South Wales beat Queensland, away. in the first round, in what's always a tough game - though by all accounts Queensland deserved to win (New South Wales scored a last-second try under the posts). Queensland are trying to rebuild after having been bled dry in terms of player drain in recent seasons, and their new coach Ewan Mackenzie has apparently got them playing a very entertaining, running game - completely the opposite of how New South Wales played under him. New South Wales appear to be showing signs of trying to break out of their typical unimaginative tight-five game, but at this stage of the season it's too early to tell if they're going to run the ball (as they always promise to do) or continue to disappoint their supporters. The A.C.T. are still trying to get their combinations going, but the signs are there that if they can get everything going smoothly they could be unstoppable. Banner signings Matt Giteau (a local boy) and Rocky Elsom should start clicking soon - in fact Elsom already has, it seems, which is very exciting. As for the team with the worst name in Rugby, the Western Force (from Perth), you can basically write off their season already: their big signing, South African fly-half Andre Pretorius, got a season-ending injury before the season even started, and since then it's all been down-hill for the team, injury-wise. It seems like every week there's another two first-team players being ruled out for the season.
I don't know what's going on with the South African or New Zealandish teams. The Canterbury Crusaders are typically strong, I think, and on the other end of the scale the Otago Highlanders continue to suck and the Wellington Hurricanes continue to show good early-season form which almost certainly won't last. I think the Auckland Blues are pretty crap this season, too - a big turnaround from when they were the unbeatable team in the first years of the Super 12.
This season, in an attempt to make Rugby more entertaining, the referees in the Super 14 have been instructed to interpret the laws of the game differently - actually to the letter of the law, to be precise - to benefit the attacking team, instead of the defending team which has had the benefit of interpretations in recent seasons (resulting in some pretty dire rugby). As ever, some experts in the northern hemisphere continue to lambast these efforts, claiming that there's nothing wrong with Rugby that a good 80-minute rolling-maul in the mud decided by whichever team has the best goal-kicker won't fix.