Touch rugby establishes a grip on Jakarta

JAKARTA (JP): Five years ago it would have been hard to come up with an outdoor sport in which Carl Lewis, Steffi Graf and Lester Piggott could have competed on the same team, except perhaps croquet.

That is not the case anymore, thanks to the emergence of touch rugby, a traditional warm-up exercise for established rugby that has developed such an international following it has been described as the fastest-growing team sport in the world.

This six- or seven-a-side sport, played with the traditional oval ball on a half-sized pitch and often by mixed teams, involves no contact - one hopes - except for a gentle touch to signify a tackle.

Speed and fitness rather than size and strength are the key qualities at the higher levels but anyone can give it a go once they've learned a few basic rules.

And it is not just in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, the traditional rugby-playing nations, where 'touch' has captured the public imagination. All over the world, from Japan to Argentina, from Sweden to Zululand, clubs are sprouting. And Jakarta is no exception.

The first game was played here in October 1994 by a group of expats who felt too old, frail or both to play tackle rugby. Two years later the Jakarta Touch Rugby Club has blossomed into a multinational association of men and women and boys and girls, aged from eight to almost eighty, who meet twice weekly at the Jakarta International School.

Club captain Mark Morgan started playing when he felt he was "too old to take the knocks" of rugby but did not want to give up the sport completely. He said he finds touch "the perfect answer to what I was looking for. I can still run out, I can still use my skills but I don't take the knocks anymore."

But he and women's captain Majella Rush are quick to stress that the sport appeals to many people besides overweight middle- aged men wanting to relive the glory days of their youth.

Rush, who plays regularly alongside men more than twice her size, said: "Women seem attracted by the fitness aspect and the fact that they can play with their partners on a more or less equal level. We would actually like to form our own team and that is something we are very much aiming for in the future."

The weekly children's session is also becoming popular. Morgan's son Thomas, aged 12, said the attraction of touch rugby for people his age is that "it builds up your skill levels for playing real rugby and it can be played by most people."

Although developed by westerners, Morgan sees no reason why touch rugby should not also be embraced by Indonesians. "In terms of Asian coverage the Japanese national side has recently won an international tournament in the UK and the sport is being taken on board by several Asian countries," he said.

Indeed this weekend the older members of the club are playing in a tournament in Singapore and next month the club intends to send several teams to a mixed tournament in Kuala Lumpur.

The club's success has brought them rewards as well, in the form of sponsorship from Miller's beer, the airline Qantas and Shangri-La hotels. (jea)