JUST in time for that annual jamboree called the Rugby Sevens I am finally getting the hang of this rugby caper.
You have to concede that it can be a little puzzling to someone not inculcated in the game since birth. The real thing is played with 15 men - or women, I now amazingly read - with giants of humanity up front and more sprightly individuals at the back.
For the Sevens variety, the ambling alps are dispensed with while in another interesting hybrid, the 10s, there's something of a mix between the two.
Having soldiered through the Five Nations tournament - which also has the great advantage of being done with in a relatively short space of time so the excitement is kept at peak levels - my knowledge of the game is deepening but one can readily understand how incomprehensible it must be to anyone from central Africa or other such parts.
Who gets to put the ball in when there's a scrum or when it's a penalty rather than a scrum is still catching me out. Not, by the way, that I did not once play the game, albeit briefly and not well.
At my lesser public school - as they are termed in certain novels - the game was played to quite an acceptable standard. However, having been snatched away from the game that meant everything to me at the time - naturally, football - this new one was viewed with a decidedly jaundiced eye.
