Rugby & Netball: Supporting the Highlanders & the Southern Steel

brought to you by Barrantes Tour & Travel sports reporter, Todd

 
We started our weekend with an onslaught of (perhaps) New Zealand's favorite pastime - sport.

Friday night saw a Super Rugby game between the local team the Highlanders and the visiting Cheetahs from South Africa.  Super Rugby is the top level professional league of Rugby Union, which is different from Rugby League, which is different still from Australian Rules football, but this blog would become a novel if I got into all these differences.  It consists of 15 teams, 5 each from New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa.

The Highlanders are one of two teams that call the South Island home and play their home games split between Dunedin and Invercargill.  This match took place at Carisbrook, the site of the All Blacks game we attended in June.  This game was not as well attended as you can see from the empty seats in the background of the picture, but it was still a blast.  And if there is game in Dunedin at Carisbrook, there has to be a pipe band.

The Highlanders do have a few players who also play for the All Blacks including halfback Jimmy Cowan. The Highlanders have had a much improved season so far over last year, and this game was no exception as they were able to secure a 24 to 21 victory.  They have a new coaching staff and it seems to be having great affect with a 5 win, 2 loss record including this weekend victory. The game was a pretty even battle.  Every time the Highlanders pulled out a good lead, the Cheetahs were able to score and make it close.  The Highlanders' defense held, and the home crowd went home happy. 

It was great to see another rugby game live.  The game runs continuously for 80 minutes split into two 40 minute halves.  The power and strength of the game is awesome as you can see in line-out plays where they lift teammates into the air to fight for the ball and in the massive scrum where 8 of my guys crouch down and try to push over 8 of your guys to fight for the ball that is rolled into our feet.  Very cool.  Oh, and there was FIRE!

The line out

The scrum

FIRE!

The second half of our weekend of sport was going to the netball game on Saturday afternoon between the Southern Steel and the Canterbury Tactix (who we actually rode on the plane with coming back from Melbourne two weeks ago).  The ANZ Championship is a netball league consisting of 10 teams, 5 from New Zealand and 5 from Australia.  Netball is an incredibly fast past basketball-like game played by women.  Laura detailed the game several months back when we started playing intramural netball at the university, so I won't cover that again.

This was our first professional netball game.  For a sport that is supposed to be non-contact, there is a LOT of body positioning and movement going on as was evident by the Tactix girl who looked to have blown her ACL in the first quarter.  Luckily (or not for her), I caught a picture of it happening.  She's going down in the left edge of the frame.

These women play fast, and they play hard.  It was great to watch a game in person, because we could see some of the action away from the ball.  The fierce battles for position under the hoop were spectacular.

Similar to the Highlanders and the All Blacks, the Southern Steel have several players who also play on the Silver Ferns, the New Zealand National Netball team.  Of the Steel's 12 players, 4 are currently on the Silver Ferns team and others are either former Silver Ferns or members of the national U21 team. 

The game was very exciting and very loud.  Netball fans are known for their enthusiasm and thundersticks are a regular fixture.  The Southern Steel, like the Highlanders also split their home games between Dunedin and Invercargill.  There are some seriously devoted fans from Invercargill way who make it to all the home games no matter where they are, and they come dressed to impress.

The Steel were behind early but were able to level the score and then pull out to a relatively comfortable 49 to 40 victory.  Since women are for more civilized then men, even in sport, there are handshakes between teams before the game starts and after the game, the handshake line comes with a kiss on the cheek.\

 

Thankfully, we have one more Southern Steel game to come.  I'm sure it will be just as exciting.