Rugby Buzzwords

Poorfour wrote:"Round the corner" - seemingly used to describe any run that goes past the back of the ruck and then straightens

"Hinging" - bending from the hips in a scrum

"Body position" - meaning having a low, wide stance, bent knees and a straight back. Coaches will tell you that good body position is the result of applying the Tower of Power (qv)

"Tower of Power" - approach developed by Graham Rowntree for adopting a good body position. Feet shoulder width apart, knees bent, backside out like a duck, back straight, shoulders back, head in neutral, looking through the eyebrows. Applicable to tackling, being tackled, rucking, mauling, scrummaging and lifting, i.e. any rugby activity that traditionally does not involve backs.

"Pinged" - Penalised. Peculiar metaphor, since even modern whistles make more of a "pheep" than a "ping".

"Choke tackle" - tackle in which two tacklers attempt to turn a tackle into a maul and thereby win the put in to a scrum. Legal.

"High tackle" - tackle in which the tackler attempts to choke the ball carrier. Not legal.

"Flooding the channels" - attacking tactic in which the attackers attempt to send several players through the same point in the defensive line, usually using an offload (qv). Defensively countered by the choke tackle (qv).

"Offload" - a short pass made just before or from the tackle, made with the aim of keeping play moving without the need for a ruck.

"Kick to nothing" - an attempt at a drop goal when the referee is already playing advantage.

"George North" - one of rugby's deities, the God of Wings. So holy that he associates only with Saints and his feet barely touch the turf. Also, his hands barely touch the ball, but this may say more about Saints' midfield.

"Genuine Openside" - a mythical ball-stealing creature found only in Wales, Australia and New Zealand and marked with the mystical number 7. Rarely seen because of its magical plumage of invisibility. Only slightly less holy than George North (qv).

"Kvesic" - an English ball-stealing creature resembling a Genuine Openside (qv) but more often marked with the number 6 or 8.

"Robshaw" - an English ball-stealing creature marked with the number 7 that is rarely seen in the game owing to its magical plumage of invisibility. The only other things that anybody knows about it is that it is definitely not a Genuine Openside or as good as Tom Wood.

"Scrum half" - small gobby creature that throws the ball into the middle of the pack.

"Hooker" - large gobby creature that throws the ball into the middle of the pack.

"Jackaling" - attempting to steal the ball at a ruck without incurring a penalty. Presumably named for Frederick Forsyth's imaginary assassin, who also tried to commit a crime without being spotted by the authorities.

"Bullocking" - I have no idea what this means or why it is regarded as complimentary to a player to compare him to a castrated bovine

"PRL" - Dastardly English organisation formed from a secretive cabal of fly-by-night moustache-twirling multimillionaires who are only interested in money and have an evil plan to make more of it by spending many years funding the losses of professional rugby clubs. They have sold their souls to the Devil (who Must Not Be Named lest he appear, but has the initials MM or possibly BT) and lurk in the six qualifying circles of Hell waiting to torture the souls of innocent Celtic rugby folk who fall into their fiendish trap.

I
"ERC" - standing above the chreubim and seraphim, below only George North in the rugby pantheon, the holy defenders of the spirit of rugby and Robin Hood-like redistributors of the cash that raineth from the Sky, yea, even unto the meek of the Pro 12 and away from the evils of the PRL (qv)