A ROUGH GUIDE TO THE LAWS, THE BELGIAN WAY

The Ruck Law
The Offside Law
The Scrum Laws
The Third Half

The Ruck:      Let us consider the ruck. Normally the law states that you cannot fringe a ruck, you cannot whilst on the ground, pick up or play at the ball and you certainly cannot flop over and die on the ruck and then begin to put hands on ball. Well guess what? You can do all of these and more when playing in Belgium. It's not that the referees don't know what's going on, it's just that they are a little bit clueless when it comes to interperitation, based on the fact that "Well, that was okay when I played,so it must be okay for these boys"despite the fact that standing next to the other teams fly-half while your mate was acting as the oppositions scrumhalf may to any other rugby nation, seem a little bit naughty.

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The Scrum:      Now, in your normal scrum, you would have your opposition scrumhalf staying in the onside position, moving round following the ball and then chasing the opposition flyhalf attempting to perform major surgery on him, while being ably assisted by your backup team of anaethesist (flanker, open side), ER nurse (your flyhalf), consultant (number eight) and junior doctor who's wandered in to watch, normally very late (front row in this case).

In Belgian rugby all the fun is taken out by the scrumhalf who in this case insists of standing directly behind his opposite number and waiting for him to pick up the ball before forcing him to view the inside of his number eights shorts. "REFEREE! I THINK HE MAYBE OFFSIDE" is usually followed by a grunt and a shrug of the shoulders by our perplexed official. It's amazing just how many number eight moves are called when the srumhalf realises he WILL get his head eventually to fully wedge up the arse of his pack leader if he keeps on picking up the ball. I dare even Austin Healey, the most fleet footed of the number nines to avoid an anal entry "avec son tete"

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TheOffside law      This really should be renamed, "sir, can I confirm that the offside line for both teams is in fact the back foot of our scrum/ruck/fullback?" Now it may sound like sour grapes, but believe me, it is true, either that or these guys could win many a sprint medal if they turned to track athletics.

Now these boys move up with speeds that would put a team that plays within the limits, say, the All Blacks, to shame. A good referee would probably blow his whistle when he regained his sense of belief. It would be slow, dangerous to the previously operated-on fly-half, but slow only because of the amazement of the merry whistle blower. So it seems that all referee's in Belgium walk around in a daze, leaving the receiving (and I really mean "receiving") number ten, a wall of opposition intent on making a straight tax-free profit on his kidneys on the open market.

Forget shouting "hor jeu" as Belgian referee's don't understand their native tongue (don't try shouting in English, they don't do that either), or have difficulty in awarding a penalty for offside as they didn't get any when they played and it's only right that these girls learn to play the game they way we did.

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The third half      There are two schools of thought here, and it depends on whether your opponnents are from the North (Flanders) or the South (Wallonia). The Flemings speak English and will at the drop of a hat get pissed as they can and mingle in and enjoy the craic. The Wallonians, by and large don't (or won't) speak English. Thereby in the bar you have a visiting team which can't be hosted properly because they and yourself know only a strange butchered form of BRITFRENCH, a language devised by the British who believe that if you speak    s l o w e r    and    LOUDER, and replace the French words you don't know with English words your guests won't know, you'll be understood.

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