R is for... Rugby!

We love rugby in this house. Ok, I'll admit it's a bit of a cultural stereotype, what with us both being Welsh and all, but you know what? Rugby is an awesome game. So much better than football. More exciting.

Since Jamie and I both support Welsh clubs (the Ospreys for Jamie, the Scarlets for me), we don't often get a chance to see our teams in action. Even less so the international team. It's a four hour round trip to Cardiff from here, even longer to get to Swansea or Llanelli. So we have to take our opportunities where we find them. We've made it a Christmas tradition to drive home for the traditional Boxing Day showdown between our teams, although I am getting thoroughly depressed with watching my team lose to his every year!

Occasionally, we get a chance to see our teams play closer to us. The only chance to see them play against English opposition is in the Heineken cup, and we've been quite lucky with the pool draws over the last few seasons; for most of the last five seasons, one of our two teams has been drawn in the same pool as London Irish, who are based here in Reading. So we try and go along to those games too, even though the Madjeski stadium hates me and tried to eat me once (I got my foot stuck in the turnstile, and fell flat on my face in front of hundreds of Ospreys and London Irish fans. So embarrassing!).

The first time we went to see a game in Reading, I got on TV! Hopefully this video will embed properly. The Scarlets had just scored a try and kicked the conversion:

We've made it onto TV a couple of other times too. At the Wales v Australia game in 2008, we had excellent seats thanks to my Dad, eight rows from the pitch, right next to the tunnel. You can just about see us on TV as the camera followed one of our players back to the bench after he came off the pitch.

That game was awesome, because for once Wales actually beat a southern hemisphere team!

We saw Wales v New Zealand a couple of years ago - seeing the Haka performed live was incredible.

The result of that game, not so awesome. We haven't beaten the All Blacks in over fifty years.


Inside the Millennium Stadium
our view for the New Zealand game



Liberty Stadium, Swansea
Taken on the way out of the stadium following a game



Wales team mascot



Inside the Liberty Stadium - front row seats!



Inside Parc y Scarlets - rain is a common feature of Welsh rugby games!

We can't wait for the World Cup to start! Although, I'm not looking forward to the kick off times. Our games are all at silly o'clock on Sunday mornings. The Samoa game kicks off at 4.30am! The worst timing is the final pool game, as it kicks off at 6am on the Sunday after a wedding we are going to. Jamie is determined to get up and watch it in the hotel. I am not so sure...

I've recently been working on some rugby themed projects - one I can't show you for at least another month as it's a surprise present for someone and I don't want to risk spoiling it. But the other I will share tomorrow in my usual WIP Wednesday post.