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Do we love rugby primarily because we enjoy the score? Deep statistics? The technique of the tighthead? The precise aim off the tee?
Is it only the love of winning or losing? Do we love rugby because we follow the uncertain fortunes of our beloved team?
Is it the admiration? A sport we played, some better than others, but almost nobody able to match even one small moment as great as the ones routinely created by the ghostly Ben Smith. Do we marvel at how much better they are than us?
No. There is also just the sheer beauty of the sport.
And what is the most beautiful part of it, to you?
Is it the zip of the perfectly spiraled pass? Or the genius of the bullet cut-out across two channels?
Is it a burst and break across those rigid modern lines of defence? The raw anger of that moment: helter skelter, the carrier trying to see his support, the cover tacklers bursting over fallen bodies, leaping to arrest the jailbreak.
Is the crafty offload from the palm, around the hapless tackler who went too low; feeding a man in flight on a lovely line? Don’t we all say words like “lovely” to describe these moments? Or even “beautiful!” Or “brilliant!” Haven’t you heard a stadium gasp?
Or is it the geometric cross-kick, intersecting the field with a surprising verticality?
Is it a grim scrum, in the last minute, to secure the victory, or steal it at the death? Every man knowing his place, feeling his fulcrum, committed, bloodied, and shouting a last word of encouragement, before the collective grunt. The man at the back on each side, waiting and then slingshotting himself into the gap, and the flanks hanging on to the big units, ready for mayhem.
Most would not say a maul is beautiful, but when it rolls? When it is acting like a battering ram? No?
What about the long, winding try with six, seven, ten passes; all of them little miracles? The dive at the end? The joy of his friends? The roar of the crowd?
Or do you see the tackle – that quintessential rugby thing – as beautiful? I do. The lowering, the raising, the explosion. Crunching through that little backline player who dares to come into the DMZ. The sound-smack-sweat of it.
Or is the lineout? That skyscraper set piece, where the flop-armed behemoths launch and hang and play like lean polar bears catching fish. And do you find the take or the steal prettier? Or the hesitant feed down to the tiny 9?
Or is the lonely turnover artist; like David Pocock, gaining a pedestal stance, and enduring the cleanout thugs?
And don’t forget that 40-metre drop goal for the win; the strike, the look, and the spinning ball.
What do you find beautiful about rugby?
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.