If this keeps up, I’m switching to badminton
Although I have long been a strong supporter of the professional era of rugby, there are disadvantages that come with the territory.
For example, as the sport moves forward with dizzying pace in countries where rugby has gone professional, the gap over ‘amateur’ countries grows ever wider.
We can also lament the draw of players from around the globe to the lucrative French rugby market, thus draining many countries (including New Zealand and Western Europe) of their top talent.
But these are just the growing pangs of the globilization of rugby.
What really burns my balls is when rugby players and fans start to look a lot more like the hooligans of football (a.k.a. soccer).
Wingers. They can be 11 or 14. They lurk on the far edges of the field, waiting to pounce at any and all half-gaps that open in the defense. They run. They chase. They tackle. They kick away possession to the dismay of their teammates. They are often the last line of defense along with the full back.
For the first 60 minutes, it was a mostly lopsided contest today with South Africa showing the visiting British & Irish Lions why they are the Rugby World Cup champions. From the scrum to the line-out, the home side outplayed their opponents at essentially every phase of the game.
As regular contributors to The Rugby Blog here at WhatIsRugby.com, Josh and I often debate back and forth the merits (or lack there of) of the prevailing match, tournament, new player, or really any piece of minutia even remotely related to rugby. We usually do this online or at the pub, or in the comments after one of us has published an new blog article. However, we make history this year by releasing our 2009 Lions selections. We’ve waited until the very last minute (the official squad is announced in less than 24 hours) so that we can claim to be the final Lions predictions for the 2009 Tour. That’s not something you hear every day!
Based in Elk Grove, IL, American Rugby Outfitters (NYSE: 
