Slavia RFC

This Tuesday I had my first rugby practice with the team I’ll be playing with here. I joined the Slavia Rugby Football Club, they are connected to the Slavia soccer team that I saw play Tottenham. It’s really cool, I get to practice at Eden, the Slavia complex and everything has the star logo. The first practice was tough for several reasons, I’m out of rugby shape, my rugby skills are rusty, and the whole practice is conducted in Czech. I had fun, it was good to be playing again and the captain, Jan, is a really nice guy. He’s huge, with a nose that’s been broken many times and he looks like a barbarian but he speaks English with a British accent and says, “cheers” a lot. He is always asking me if I’m enjoying myself and having fun, he’s a good guy. We had a tournament yesterday and it was awesome. We had a glorious spring day—first of the year—sunny and 60s. There were 5 teams, Slavia A and Slavia B, Sparta (Slavia’s rivals, they are the other Prague sports complex and have the other Pro soccer team), and 3 other area teams. I was on the Slavia B team which was a bit harsh, we didn’t win any games. We lacked knowledgeable players, team discipline, and chemistry. Despite all that I had a great time and really re-realized what I like about playing rugby. I was rusty and didn’t play great, but by the last game I was getting back into form again and I had a great game. I played well and was involved a lot and I scored 2 tries back-to-back! Try is the rugby word for a touchdown. The first one I was out toward the sideline and got a pass from a teammate who was about to get hit and I just cut against the flow of the play and blew though the defense to score untouched. Then a few minutes later we had gotten the ball back and were attacking. The ball got swung out wide and Diego, who’s from Argentina, had the ball and passed it off to me at the last second before he got hit. He timed his pass perfectly but it went a little high and behind me. I then made one of the best athletic plays I have ever made and shot my arm up and caught the ball one handed as I cut back against the defensive flow again. The two defenders I split each almost brushed me with a hand but they were off balance and moving the wrong way and I went in to score again. The coolest part was the crowd reaction; all these Czech fans got up and yelled! I got one of the bigger cheers of the day, it did help I was playing for Slavia and we were at their stadium so they were all fans of my team. It was a great day but it really took it out of me, I went to be around 8:30 that night and slept more than 12 hours. I am excited to keep playing. I’m going to officially join the team and I get to play in 5 regular season game and I get a personalized Slavia jersey with my name and number. The jerseys are awesome, with real sponsors and everything, they are totally legit.