If the proverbial genie were to offer me five wishes right now my answer without hesitation would be the following:
1) To be associated with this logo
2) To wear this jersey
3) To be this man
Tana Umaga, captain of the All Blacks
4) To do the haka before quaking opposition at the IRB World Cup finals
5) World peace, yada yada yada
My love affair with rugby, curiously enough, came about purely by accident. Prior to Form 3 my love for the game was restricted to singing along to the impressive repertoire of unbelievably dirty rugby songs (of which my firm grasp has never waned). I know limericks and cheering songs that would turn the air blue.
Setting foot on the pitch itself, however, was another matter altogether.
Until the day during sports when a certain gentleman, clearly bent on terminating my lineage, prematurely tackled me. Or, to be more accurate, attempted to plant my head and shoulders beneath the surface of the pitch. All that I can say is after that tackle there are some 5 minutes of my life that I cannot account for. I came to with 20 odd people looking down at me as i attempted to convince my lungs to resume duty. They were in fact drawing lots for what I was wearing. Steve my son, I owe you one!
As my lungs resumed their duties, I spat grass, weeds and pebbles from my mouth, retrieved the assorted pieces of my t-shirt and tried to remember whether i was a bipedal or quadrupedal creature, I came to the very philosophical conclusion that I had experienced the absolute worst experience that can ever happen to you during the game (aside from having your cojones grabbed by your opposite number in the confusion of a scrum or a maul).