It’s the Rugby World Cup and some of us are enjoying every minute of it, pre-booking spots in pubs to watch it on the big screen so we can dissect plays with friends. While some of us in the same venue would find more entertainment eating a stack of dirty beer mats than watching men give each other rough cuddles on the grass.
But spare a thought for those caught in-between thanks to a web of their own lies. The people who once pretended to like rugby union out of social politeness that one time, and are now stuck watching and talking about it forever because it’s too embarrassing to come clean.
It could have been a passing remark on a first date that you also enjoyed watching “the match” in a point-scoring exercise but that dinner turned into a three-year relationship. Now you’ve become a prisoner of your own sales tactic as you trundle along to matches in the jersey your partner bought for your birthday when you actually just wanted a Kindle.
Or that time you joined the work outing to the rugby because they had a corporate hospitality package and you just have a weakness for complimentary mini quiches. Now the boss keeps asking you about whether or not players will come back from injury in time. And you have to make something up on the spot even though you think it’s a bit weird to keep tabs on the ligament strain of a strange man you’ve never met.
[ Brianna Parkins: The people of Ireland will not let me be in bad formOpens in new window ]
So we go on, Googling “rugby cheat notes” frantically in toilets before the meeting. The World Cup is one-month long stomach ulcer-creating exercise, living with a deep-seated fear our coworkers or loved ones will find out at any moment.
And there’s a good reason for our concern. Ireland loves rugby, more so than Australians who have the weather to do better things with their time, I suppose. Like rugby league. But here rugby dominates as an international team sport we might have a hope of being successful at. The dedication is almost cult-like as is the worship of players. That’s all I’ll say because Brian O’Driscoll might hear me and I’m sure by the way he’s treated in Ireland that he could be a type of omniscient demigod.
There’s too much social and status anxiety attached to the ‘right kind’ of rugby for many of us to reveal our true disinterest. It’s not safe out there. The only way forward for our kind is on but mostly off-field dramas. Turn the sport you only have a vague interest into a series you could love all by adding a bit of context.
Sport has loads of grudge matches between players, countries and coaches. Have a dig around the rivalries.
Then there’s off-field relationships. The Women’s Fifa World Cup gave us hours of analysis dedicated to the ongoing and former romantic relationships between players thanks in particular to the interactive and detailed map made by a 20-year-old lesbian in Greece named Helen.
Knowing which exes were playing on the same team, and which were against, is just one of the arguments for the LGBTQI+ community to be put solely in charge of all sporting events.
So far the men’s Rugby Union World Cup has given us a few safe topics to talk about that require zero understanding of the rules.
There was the sweet gesture from the All Blacks to a Namibian player after a nasty-looking ankle injury ended his World Cup campaign early.
The jandals [flip-flops] and chilly bin [drinks cooler] enthusiasts sent Le Roux Malan a jersey with all the New Zealand players’ signatures with his number on the back in a display of sympathy and sportsmanship.
Then there was the Uruguay captain Andres Vilaseca having what professionals call “a right go” at the press with most of them only bothering to show up to the team’s conference when they did better than expected against France. It had all the allure of a Facebook mum going on a rant and misquoting Marilyn Monroe by putting “if you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best” in their status.
If you find yourself in a live game situation and you can’t follow the action along because you’re dissociating out of boredom and rearranging your friend’s lounge room in your head to make the room look bigger, don’t worry.
Like many sports fans, people watching rugby don’t realise they can watch just with their eyes and not with their mouths. They’ll yell and grab each other when good thing happens. They’ll abuse the referee and put their head in their hands in gestures that make Italian opera scenes look subtle. Just follow their lead and copy along.
Sometimes they will even shout at the players through the television as if they are tiny men trapped in a little box who can hear them and are awaiting the instructions of a HR manager named Rob who last played when he was 11. Instead of being professional high performance athletes playing on a field in a different country with an actual coach.
We only have a few weeks of deception to go, my friends. Study your guides, use your training and remember: it’s a game of two halves, full credit to the boys, you just have to go out there and give it 110 per cent.