Antafagasta: Rugby Nationals Circuit #1

Well here is yet another awesome adventure

to add to my ever growing gosh I am so blessed list:

I just got to help my rugby team here in Chile

WIN a national rugby title…

ya, that’s pretty neat.

It took me about 2 days in Chile before I found a rugby team. I was wearing a rugby shirt at our hostel and some guy ask me about it, turns out he’s a rugby coach for a local sports club Stade Frances. It wasn’t until my 4^th day in Chile that I went to my first Chilean rugby practice. So one problem, a that point, I didn’t speak or understand any Spanish, as opposed to now where I understand VERY little and can barely speak like a 3 year old. But the team is made of rugby gals and if you know anything about girls who play rugby, its that they are incredible. Welcoming, fun, loud, and always down for a good time- so I made my home fast. I have been training with them since July and all of it was in prep for this first National Tournament way up north in Antafagasta, Chile.

We flew out bright and early on a Friday morning and arrived to Antafagasta about 9am. Antafagasta is a small city on the coast in Northern Chile. It started as a mining town, and that is still its major income. The city is in the desert and on the coast, which makes for a beautiful combo. The flight in was gorgeous, you can see the mountains and the pacific ocean in once view with giant sand duns separating the 2. We were bused to our hotel which was right on the beach an immediately went to test out the waters... still cold. I got lots of cool team gear and really felt like one of the team members as they decided to force me to speak Spanish all weekend instead of translating into English for me.

Saturday we got to play about 4 games. They play 7’s here, so each game was short, but intense. And there were many other games and many other teams to watch. The first half of the first game our coach had me watch because I had never played a real game with the team before. Then starting at that half time and for the rest of the tournament Sabastian, our coach, put me in to play. I played a wing/prop, ya, weird I know. I lifted, and sometimes scrummed, but also played wing in the back line. It was a blast. You really become close to someone after you play rugby with them. So I REALLY got to know my team. We won all our games on Saturday which put us in 1^st place going into Sunday’s finals. We got to go swimming at the hotel pool Saturday after the games, and stretched a lot and were up early on Sunday to do it again.

We had 3 games on Sunday, all of which were very tuff and very close games. We faught hard and in the championship game late Sunday evening we went into sudden death overtime before winning the national title. We got a HUGE trophy, and we all got medals. So I now have an awesome Chilean Women’s rugby National medallion to show off. So cool. What a weekend!