Dennis Frisch on Playing (The Insane Game of) Rugby

Weekly Meeting June 12th, 2019

Above is a photo of Club member Dr. Dennis Frisch playing Rugby for the Florida Old Boys Rugby Club.

A good video that shows the rules of the game can be found at this link. And, this link provides a really good pictorial overview of the game.

There are 15 players on each team which are grouped Positions 1-8 as Forwards and 9-15 as Backs. There are some similarities to football in that the ball is similar but bloated in the middle, and player with the ball runs with it until he either scores a ‘try’ or is tackled.

The most famous image is the Scrum which is the formation of almost all the players interlocked. The ball is thrown in and someone finally gets it and takes off running.

Points can be scored in several ways: a try, scored by grounding the ball in the in-goal area (between the goal line and the dead-ball line), is worth 5 points and a subsequent conversion kick scores 2 points; a successful penalty kick or a drop goal each score 3 points. (From Wikipedia).

When asked if he’s ever been hurt playing Rugby, Dennis responded along the lines of, “I’ve broken a few bones and had a lot of bruises.” How in the world does such a nice guy like Dr. Dennis Frisch play such a god-awful dangerous and rough game?