The Midnight Rugby

The only thing harder than binge drinking on a Thursday night, is following that up with playing touch rugby on the beach. And all this while, DJ Yukun is spinning and your subconscious is dictating you to dance instead.

Touch rugby is for pussies you say? 9 years ago I would have applauded your wise judgement, but in the years of furious drinking and disdain for exercise that I have chronicled, coaxing my legs to run is like convincing the world that Obama should be the next Pope.

Everything last night was just drawing me to call off the agreement to participate in the friendly tournament. There was the buffet line of baby back ribs, mac and cheese and a whole lot of other food that would be appreciated by obese kids. And there was the open bar of Red Bull with Chivas.

Me: “I’m going to pace the perimeter of the field and mark a spot where I am going to be throwing up. Stay clear of it. I’ll be burying that with sand, just because I am a considerate beach user.”

Organiser: “That is gross.”

Me: “I have about 5 glasses of Red Bull and Chivas in me now, and I probably had a tomato. If anything comes out of me tonight, you probably have a tomato plant on the beach by Christmas.”

I wasn’t actually sure if I was going to be playing. I figured it was just a request in jest and that they would ultimately pull our team out because we would have been too drunk to play or that there would have been other enthusiasts in the crowd that would have been spurred on to play on the impulse of alcohol.

Then the exhibition match commenced and suddenly, playing in the tournament looked a lot more hazardous than I thought.

Poca: “Are you sure you know what you are getting yourself into?”
Me: “It’s touch rugby, what can go wrong?”
Poca: “It doesn’t look like touch rugby to me….”

And she was right. Nothing that was panning out before me looked remotely like what I had envisaged touch rugby to be; which would have included a lot of giggling, like homosexual 7 year olds playing catching for the first time, while running with their water bottles.

There were tackles, shoving, pushing and if I was nearer, I could swear that spitting and hurling vulgarities were tactical leverages as well. I did not travel all the way to Sentosa to get my ass beat down like Rocky Balboa and having my face planted into the sand is not what my ideal Thursday looks like.

Organiser: “Don’t worry, this is just an exhibition rugby match. This isn’t touch rugby.”

Me: “I need to drink more.”

When they finally made the announcement for the participating friendly teams to enter the field for a briefing of rules and practice session, I was sure this was the worse decision made since the bombing of Pearl Harbour.

Coach: “In touch rugby, you just need to tap you opponent. One girl in the previous match threw her cap and it counted.”

Me: “So does spitting count?”

Coach: "Let's not do that for now. I'm pretty sure it's not allowed."

Two practice rounds for normal passing and variation passing later, I was certain that drinking is infinitely more enjoyable than touch rugby. The other team that was practicing on the field with us was taking it so serious I started wondering if the winner was going to get a national squad berth, or a handjob.

When we started the match against the other team, it was clear that the level of enthusiasm for the game was between a eunuch at an orgy and a whale at the buffet line. Neither Lin or LB looked like they would commit to more than a jog and the other team looked like they were ready to run to Johor just for a touchdown.

Me: “Hey guys, let’s keep it slow and easy. I am two steps away from a cardiac arrest. Running should be banned.”

They pretty much ignored me.

To say they were taking it serious was an understatement, like calling Hitler a compassionate leader. They were running fervidly round the field and aggressively tapping us, I was convinced that somewhere down the line, they would start throwing in flying kicks, headbutts and bodyslams.

I don’t know if you can call that passion because this was a fucking friendly and there isn’t even a cause behind it, like world peace or free shoes for polio kids. I know there is a competitive streak in men, but it’s a Thursday and there is an open bar and buffet waiting, how serious can you possibly be?

We lost the match to a single touch down from this skeletal frame guy that looked more like he would enjoy a shot of heroin to running.

15 minutes later.

Organiser: “Are you guys ready? Your next match is in 5 mins.”

Is this God giving us a chance at redemption? To save what lethargic dignity we had left? Do we even have another 10 minutes of strength left in our legs? Or has it been eroded by years of binge drinking? And to think I was just about to start drinking again.

When we got on to the pitch, we realized that we were up against an all-female team. Only that they played in semi-professional rugby league and that they had more lungs in a single person than we had as a collective team. We decide that it is okay to throw cheap shots at them –eye gorges included -, people will understand.

Me: “Don’t you have a team of handicap old folks we can play against instead?”

Girl: “Err.. no leh.”

10 minutes later, we lost that game as well. I don’t know about them, but I gave up running by the second half. I figured that since we were going to lose anyway, the least I could do, is to do it with clean clothes and my perspiration in check.

Poca: “This is embarrassing, you lost to girls.”

I didn’t think so. They were diving all over the sand. I don’t know of any girl who would dive on sand. I secretly begin to suspect that this was a team of girls that have been grain fed with testosterone for years. If my feet weren’t so itchy, I might have felt my ego bruise. I turned to the event planners.

Me: “You need to plan more challenging things next year instead, like chess or Monopoly. This is just too tedious and unproductive.”

The only consolation was the tie in the last match because the other team sucked just as much as we did. There was enough suck in that game to deprive all hookers around the world of giving a blowjob for a day.