Gudday Cobbers,
On the eve of the Australia versus Georgia rugby check, after deep reflection, and with full consciousness that by my selecting to reveal such issues from the bowels of the Scrum Illuminati, that this can be the final time anybody ever hears from me, I really feel nonetheless compelled to share a secret.
What I share now marks me as The Betrayer. What I disclose under has been, up till now, data buried and sanctified past the realms of extraordinary males. Whereas identified to a selected few, its particulars have traditionally been a intently guarded secret, with any written discourse of such squirreled away in in any other case forgotten vaults of the Papal library archives. And so, for me to brazenly focus on such issues, actually condemns my soul to damnation past the assistance of mortal man. Nonetheless I’m going to do it.
At present I speak of ‘Scrumception’.
Scrumception is a state of being not like anything you’ll expertise in life. The overwhelming majority of humanoids by no means will realize it. And for that, they need to be grateful they are going to by no means even wrestle with it as an idea of their consciousness, not to mention should abide it for the problem it’s.
However a few of we few, we chosen few, we pleased band of brothers who settle for the upper calling of assuming the mantle of jersey 1, 2 or 3 could expertise it as soon as, and a really uncommon few idiots could style it twice, in our lifetimes. And when occurs, it basically alters the best way you see the world, your life, our sport, and your function inside every of these spheres, in probably the most elementally base method.
Scrumception occurs, very like any extra garden-variety finish to a Dunnings Kruger impressed overconfidence, when an opponents scrum hits you so onerous, so unexpectedly abruptly and so overwhelmingly that your entire essence of being merely turns into enveloped in a bubble-moment of exploding sensations and feelings so fully exterior your conception, that the world merely vanishes from all sensory notion colleges that you’ve. That is past getting lifted off your toes. That is apart from popping rib cartilage, dislocating a shoulder or collapsing a knee. That is sub-terranean.
Accordingly, Scrumception will be tough to articulate at a granular stage, significantly to those that’ve simply not ever performed up-front, or maybe carried out a little bit of wrestling, and so don’t have even a modicum of realized expertise by which to root the bottom elemental elements of ache, surprising non secular self-awareness and the all-encompassing sense of impending doom that’s multiplied exponentially outwards in all instructions and dimensions concurrently. In-fact I liken attempting to explain it to the seminal phrases of Potter Stewart, affiliate justice of the US Supreme Court docket and his well-known non-definition of pornography: “I do know it after I see it”. Solely I’ll rephrase it barely and say, “You’ll realize it once you stay it”, because the gamut of sensations and feelings that it encompasses are past mere phrases, and thus would even be completely different for anybody who has traversed that gulf. However inside that spectrum of expertise, two components undoubtably stay true: it’s all-powerful within the second, and you’ll by no means be the identical once more.
Slightly, that is an instantaneous overwhelming of every part that’s you. This can be a nanosecond of such Large Bang universality that your world, and your home amongst it, merely ceases to even exist, not to mention matter. It’s a sudden blanket acceptance that what you formally knew as ‘you’ by no means did actually exist in any respect, and THIS is your eternal universe now, as you’re carbon-frozen like some kind of perverse Hans Solo in a state of shock, ache and base atomic-level survival. And I have to stress that while the common scrum lasts barely 10 seconds from engagement to clearance, I promise you, the notion of time is simply that – a notion solely. For on this state of suspended quasi-animative existence, you’ll seemingly stay years earlier than you re-enter the Milky Approach once more, not to mention re-find your physique, after which hopefully come dashing again to ear-roaring consciousness seemingly nearly earlier than you even left it.
If you do re-find your self within the cosmos, with luck the bodily immediacy of your Scrumception incident will likely be over. At finest, you’ll reawaken face first within the turf and you’ll undergo a pure, reflexive body-check, beginning with wriggling your toes, fingers and regularly reconnecting and pulse-checking your bodily features up till you flutter your eye-lids and reopen your jaw to gingerly pick the grass and spit out the mud and occasional earthworm that had gathered therein. In that second, you’ll really welcome the head-splittingly screaming ache out of your twisted shoulders, contorted ribs and knotted legs as a minimum of these sensations affirm the very fact you probably did in-fact return from the Nothingness. And sure, you’ll very doubtless have shat your self in some method (which is why I’m at all times cautious of white shorts and why to at the present time I nonetheless put on budgie-smugglers and never cotton lingerie).
From there, reversing down the steeply inclined driveway of luck, for those who regain consciousness any earlier within the course of, you might resurface in more and more worsening states of both creating repose (assume ‘human pretzel’), or God Forbid, nonetheless within the maturing throes of mentioned scrum someplace and thus nonetheless locked inescapably within the vortex of bodily and emotional turmoil in-which you instinctively realise that you’d have most well-liked to nonetheless be unconscious. That mentioned, I’ve heard it whispered in back-alley bars of ill-repute and smelly incense, that there are darkish chapels in unstated locations round southern France (who exact places I’m blood-oathed to not disclose) in-which will be summonsed by Ouija board, the poor souls of the Ceaselessly Unawakened – these banished ghosts, misplaced and trapped in an eternity of perpetual flailing about exterior the partitions of Rugby Valhalla within the Afterlife. For them, their scrum by no means ended and thus they can’t be a part of the revelry and rummery inside.
A few of you might scoff at what I say. And that’s okay. Somebody needs to be the poncy Backs or the smart-arsed Loosies I assume. What that tells me is that you just’ve not ever seen the opposite aspect. That door has not ever opened earlier than you, whether or not you wished it to or not. And so that you’ve not ever stared into the Abyss because it vacuumed you thru to the Nothingness past. To you I really feel no ill-will. I really feel no indignation. In-fact, regardless of the tumult of the expertise, I really feel nearly a passing sorrow for you that you just’ll fortunately stay your life with out having such a revelation. However that mentioned, I might not ever want the expertise on anybody. For while it’s an enriching expertise no-doubt, it’s a revelation that have to be embraced provided that it comes for you, for to hunt it out could be past folly past measure.
These of us who’ve tasted Scrumception, and so entered the Underworld past, recognise others who’ve tasted it on sight. We/They’ve this kind of hollowness across the eyes, a sure presence not completely dissimilar to what the army sorts name a ‘thousand yard stare’. Nevertheless it’s not fairly that both. It’s a greyness, a barely harrowing haunting that sits within the dim background of our now-elevated consciousness like some kind of squatting, indefinable leech that by its malevolent presence alone reminds us to set a bit decrease and to hunt the chilly snug safety of jamming our face into the grass a bit faster if we should, until we want to tempt the good Bellerophon beast to come back Tango once more. And nobody does that.
However regardless of the dangers and the horrors it entails, to undergo Scrumception, to expertise that second and are available out the opposite aspect, is to be reborn, is to be remade, and so is to be revered and mirrored on with nice solemnity. Why? As a result of to outlive the crucible is to mount the summit and straddle the beast – for you are actually, and should with integrity name your self, really amongst The Row. And as a scarred and legitimised member of that international fraternity, I let you know there isn’t any place within the rugby-verse that I might reasonably be.
Why am I telling you of this? Why do I tempt the wrath of the Gods of Rugby to share such unstated secrets and techniques with these exterior the fold of The Row? As a result of it’s good for people to know that for true Fronties, ‘victory’ isn’t discovered on a scoreboard. For us it isn’t measured in tries or objectives. Slightly it’s hinted at within the backside of collapsed lots, it’s vaguely smelt within the blackness of rucks, it’s fleetingly tasted within the maelstrom of mauls, the place not simply your physicality however the very power of your soul is examined. For to outlive and compete therein lies respect, power, dedication and recognition of honour. In there lies a victory past the attain of some poncy scoreboard or some interfering Referee. However the best, best, and probably the most singular expressions of such locations, struggles and feelings are discovered within the scrum. Nowhere else. And thus within the scrum lies the origins of Scrumception: Scrumtopia.
Why do I let you know this now? As a result of tomorrow our Wobblies face Georgia. And inside that, as a result of inside the subsequent 24hrs, our Wobblies will face the Georgian scrum. In these moments of beautiful contest that lie forward, a minimum of one Wobbly Frontie, if not a number of extra, may have their Scrumception second by the hands of a gaggle of fellows who exist at a sub-molecular stage for little or no cause apart from to scrum. After which scrum once more. After which to maintain on scrumming till your legs are past collapse, your ribs effectively previous jelly, your shoulders and neck past any level of short-term restoration, and your very grasp on actuality has slipped past tenuous and into the greyness of the Void.
Please consider me after I say that these Georgian lads are nearly the purest expression of Scrumception. And the proof for that assertion is inarguably within the numbers as, from a rustic that solely has round 9,500 registered rugby gamers, Georgia at present has round sixty skilled entrance rowers exported all through the rugby world, with one thing like 40 of these plying their commerce within the scrum-luvvin’ environs of France alone. So be in little doubt that these guys stay to scrum and never a lot else. They usually’re bloody good at it. And tomorrow the most effective they’ve are going through down the Wobbs. So, dare I recognise them for what they’re: residents, nay denizens, of Scrumtopia.
And once more, people could scoff at me. For our Wobbly Fronties know what they’re about proper? They’ll bench-press engine blocks yeh? They’ll squat small vehicles yeh? They’ve packed various scrums proper? They’ve obtained this Yeh? Proper?
Yeh, Nah.
Our Wobbs are about to have their smug, “What’s occurring ‘ere?” happy-go-lucky ignorance and fleeting sense of confidence received over the past fortnight, morphed right into a basically life-changing ordeal that may initially scar them and can genuinely give them troubled goals for a time. However these wounds will heal. With time and copious quantities of whiskey, these legions will scab, callous and age into a type of silvery, meandering ‘life effectively lived’ scars that, with the passing of years and much more whiskey, will meld to turn out to be however one other seam of discoloured pores and skin on the again of their forearm, misplaced among the many multitude of life’s different scars. However this a scar that the bearer will always remember the place it got here from nor what it entailed. For that would be the scar, received in opposition to Georgia, on his Scrumception Day.
Thus tomorrow, someplace inside what others will dismissively name ‘a sport’, a few our boys could face their Scrumception second. And while it might be ugly for them within the on the spot, it’s going to no-doubt assist form who they turn out to be. For they are going to have earnt their scar in opposition to those that could also be the most effective there’s – the Georgian scrum.
And so, as an older Frontie with my Scrumception second effectively behind me, I can’t assist however acknowledge that I’m a bit of bit jealous of these boys. However placing that selfishness apart, I do additionally acknowledge that after the ultimate whistle I will even increase my glass to all of them, Georgian and Wobbly alike, and say “Welcome.”
