World cups a poppin'!

The 2007 Rugby Union World Cup is on, and I've only just watched my first test. Games can be viewed, after a twenty-four hour delay, online on the official ruby world cup website (rugbyworldcupvideo.com) for $3 a pop. Or one can opt to purchase all 48 games for $50. There's another package that's much pricier that includes some sort of premium content. I'm contenting myself with the pay per view route. So far so good. Streaming occasionally gets choppy. I haven't bothered to wait for an entire download. I'm assuming the servers are in the UK. I've been watching Scotland pummel Portugal. The English announcers have handled Portugal at once charitably and condescendingly. I don't know how an announcer manages to say the phrase, "Please, if you're from Portugal don't take offense, but when you have a match up between a rugby union heavyweight and a rugby minnow..." with deference but somehow the gentleman managed.

It's been fun to watch Scotland blow out a team, but my next game will have to be a closer contest. Perhaps featuring New Zealand's All Blacks. I want to see how the US do, but I'll skip their opener against England where they lost the test and a player for the rest of the tournament after he committed a dangerous tackle. I'll be interested to see how they do against Tonga tomorrow who is supposed to be a much more even match. Also we have 4 players on the US side who were born in Tonga one of whom is the nephew of the Tonga head coach. Rugby Union has a lot more nation swapping than say the soccer World Cup or the Olympics.

It's strange watching an international sport that's more or less dominated by anglophones. New Zealand and Australia are always strong contenders with Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, and South Africa putting in strong appearances. Other teams are strong, France for instance has been pretty much on the leaderboard for some time

The US men's rugby team ranked 15th are coming off of a loss from England, but people are offering their tenacious performance as evidence for their favored status in their upcoming match against 14th ranked Tonga tomorrow.. This should be a close match - and freaky. The US side has four players who were born in Tonga and one of them is the nephew of the Tonga head coach. Bum bum buuum. The US

The US Women's Soccer team went up against N. Korea and tied 2-2. It was raining cats and dogs in China where the match was held. I don't place too much on any result under such conditions - the weather, not the nation. Their next match is against Sweden on the 14th. The fourth team in this bracket is Nigeria. Ugh. It's not a cake walk. Especially since whatever happens in the US Sweden game will pretty much determine who gets to move on. Commence nail biting.

As mentioned the women's cup is held in China this year so the games come on at 5 or 8 in the morning EST. I don't have cable anyhow so it's not like I'd be able to peep them all that much. I'm looking for games online, but the offerings are slim. I've seen some sketchy deals touting satellite tv through the internet where I can watch 1,000s of satellite television stations for a one time cost of 49.95. I'll tell you whenthe first question in the FAQ is "Is this legal?" and the answer is an unsupported "Yes." I have to keep on surfing. However, it just occurred to me that ESPN is merely doing a bad job of marketing their merch without driving up page counts for google. I've been searching women's world cup matches online without a single peep from the network that carries the games, but a quick hop to their site shows me that they're airing the games for free on ESPN360. Hurrah! Now I'll have something to do tomorrow morning at work.

In my own rugby news, my first game (ahem "test") is this Saturday. I'm psyched and nervous. I'm excited to finally get on the field and see what this is really all about. Practice is one thing, but we don't engage in a lot of contact so that we might keep our bodies fresh - although tonight we did some tackling and some dropping and I managed to be clumsy around some injured teammates. At any rate, I don't have a true understanding of how much I'm going to limp afterwards. Then I'm flying off to a wedding so I'll be missing the post game fete. After every rugby match there's a social where both teams get together and drink a shit ton of beer generally hosted by the home team. Crazy.