to move up and down
It’s a bird… It’s a plane…: Ilai Tinai of Fiji dives over to score a try during the semi-final match between South Africa and Fiji on day two of the 2012 Gold Coast Sevens at Skilled Park on October 14, 2012 in Gold Coast, Australia.
Photo: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images
Imagine a scenario where an elite Australian athlete, let’s say, for example, a field hockey player, with great co-ordination, bulging muscles and an appetite to try, well, something new, moves to Canada because he is sick of field hockey and wants to give ice hockey a shot with the Montreal Canadiens.
Now imagine that he struggles, mightily, but bit by bit masters our game and four years later is skating around Montreal’s Bell Centre with an Australian flag draped about his shoulders, celebrating his team’s Stanley Cup victory.
It sounds preposterous, that is, until one considers the curious case of Mike Pyke, a strapping lad with bulging muscles from Victoria, B.C. The 28-year-old was a Canadian national team rugby player until he got sick of the game and moved to Australia four years ago to give Australian Rules Football — a sport he had only ever watched on late-night TV and that is about as different from rugby as high jumping is from pole vaulting — a shot with the Sydney Swans, the game’s most storied franchise.
Four years later, on a late September night in Melbourne in a stadium crammed with 100,000 screaming fans, and with millions more watching at home, there was our Mike Pyke, who struggled mightily, at first, among the heroes for the Swans as they beat the Hawthorn Hawks in the “Grand Final.”
It’s a dirty job…
Ray McManus of Ireland, a photographer working for Sportsfile, has won the World Press second prize Sports Singles with this action picture from a rugby match between Old Belvedere and Blackrock played in heavy rain in Dublin, Ireland on February 5, 2011. The World Press Photo of the Year and the runners up were announced Friday; here are some of the pictures.
Hair today, gone tomorrow
Comedian Rick Mercer squirted some ketchup as he pretended to shave Canadian player Adam Kleeberger in front of the University of Victoria Student Union Building. But fear not the straight razor, rugby fans. No arteries were severed as the segment will be shown on CBC’s Rick Mercer Report in two weeks. Adrian Lam/Postmedia News
Just a flesh wound
New Zealand All Blacks’ Andy Ellis leaves the field during their Rugby World Cup semi-final match against Australia Wallabies at Eden Park in Auckland. Photo: David Gray/Reuters
Members of the media sport fake mustaches in a show of solidarity with France rugby head coach Marc Lievremont, who came under heavy criticism because of the team’s poor performance at the World Cup. REUTERS/Jacky Naegelen
Canadians sporting the latest fashion at the Rugby World Cup. Canada lost to New Zealand on Saturday night. Jacky Naegelen/Reuters
Schooboys perform the Haka before the start of the re-enactment of the first match rugby ever played in New Zealand in Nelson on Tuesday. The celebration re-enacts the original rugby match played between Nelson College and Nelson Rugby Club in Nelson on May 14, 1870. REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci
Rugby World Cup
A combination picture shows fans of 15 out of 20 World Cup teams with patriotic face paint. STF/AFP/Getty Images
Now & Then
This is a photo of Adam Kleeberger four years ago (left) and another from the Rugby World Cup tournament in New Zealand on Sept. 14 (right). Geoff Robins/Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images
