Sportsmanship

I'm a rugby player. I'm 5'11", weight 150lbs and only 15 years old. Not exactly the profile of someone that would expect to be careful in a rugby match. That's wrong. My school had gotten into the county cup for rugby and we were in our 3rd to last match of the cup. We went about 2 hours on a coach to our opponents school. Despite being a military school, there wasn't much out of the blue until we were on the pitch looking our opposite man in the eye looking for weakness. The whistle blew and the match began. we were very equal sides except they were all 5'9" Nepalese students except for a behemoth of a player that seemed 6'5" and felt like he weighed over 200lbs when he hit you. but he wasn't the man that stood out. There was one particular player that was the most courageous of them all. he hit people hard when he made contact but after the ruck had cleared, he always stopped to check that the person he hit was okay regardless of who tackled who. Again, this wasn't what impressed me the most. what did, however, was the fact that in the closing 5 minutes of the match, we were trailing by 2 points. we were on the counter attack and it was one on one between our 6'2" second row and the fullback that i just mentioned. our second row was running flat out and when the tackle was made, you could just hear the slap of bare arm to bare leg, the grunt of both players as the wind was knocked out of them and then the most amazing thing happened. He won the ruck, picked up the ball and stood still. He bent down to ask the second rower if he was okay and then gave him the ball. This was the most amazing thing that i have ever seen in my life. To actually give the opposition the immense advantage of handing them the ball just 10 metres away from the try line was incredible. But the second rower want that kind of try so he threw the ball about 10 metres back and off the pitch. Then shook the players hand and said thanks to him. The rest of the match finished and we sat down to have food with the team afterwards and our second rower asked the fullback why he did what he had done. His reply was incredible "My dad is a member of the Gurkha rifles, so was my granddad and his dad too also fought as a Gurkha. I've been raised to respect others as much as i possibly can, regardless of what i gain in return. And if that means that I either lose a rugby match for my school, or lose my life over a country, then so be it but I'm the son of a Gurkha and never will I forget that." the results of that match was 25-27 to the duke of York's royal military school. both sides fought as hard as possible, and we will never forget that game.

Submitted by Anonymous

Sportsmanship