FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

Normally when a team gets blown out 48-0 in a game of rugby, their first inclination would be to go to the nearest watering hole and down a few beers to drown out the pain.

The Austrian rugby team, however, decided to do something a little different and shed their clothes. (It's safe for work, don't worry)

The Austrian Rugby team has responded to their 48-0 thrashing by Lithuania on Saturday by staging a mass striptease in the capital, Vilnius, on Saturday night.

"Yes, these were the men we played against on Saturday ... I guess the defeat could have prompted them to do that," Lithuanian rugby federation President Aleksandras Makarenka told Reuters.

Delfi quoted the Vilnius police chief as saying stripping in public could be considered an act of hooliganism -- but by then the Austrian team had gone home.

Well, after doing a public striptease, it's certainly hard to remember that your team got thrashed. Of course, I'm sure the men didn't expect somebody to have a video camera handy to capture the action. Whoops!

Dhani Jones probably won't be trading his quest for the Lombardi Trophy with a quest for the Heineken Cup any time soon, but the Cincinnati Bengals linebacker got a taste of American football's distant relative when he trained with Blackheath Rugby Club, which was founded it 1858 and is the third-oldest rugby club in the world. Blackheath currently plays in National Division Two, the third tier of English club rugby behind the Guinness Premiership and Division One.

Jones is filming a series of segments for the Travel Channel in which he learns how to play international sports that are unknown to most Americans. He's currently in Ireland learning the old Gaelic sport of hurling.

In a classic case of stereotypical British types flipping on the telly with a resounding "What's all this, then?," the BBC received a wave of complaints this weekend as soccer and rugby dominated BBC1 with 10 hours of continuous sports coverage. As American soccer enthusiasts wallowing in the muck of the February sports calendar, we have to be just a tiny bit envious. While the BBC's coverage would be more similar to NBC running non-stop sports than say, ESPN or FOX, but the entire conflict raises two pretty big questions on our end. One, when did an annual rugby tournament cause such a stink in the UK? Two, don't they have any other channels over there?

We guess a more comparable argument would be telling NBC they're showing too much of the freaking Olympics, which is absurd, unless you're complaining about their almost non-stop coverage of gymnastics or figure skating. We know that's out main complaint with round-the-clock sports coverage, too much of the wrong sports, not too much sports. Das FanHaus suggests the more cantankerous BBC licensees visit one of their local historic landmarks. We here there's like one every few miles over there.

(HT: Daily Mail)

In case you're wondering, yes, a rugby player taking a "clearing kick square in the face" really is as funny as it sounds:

That was Cory Jane of the Wellington Hurricanes on the receiving end of a kick from Kurtley Beale of the New South Wales Waratahs. Here's how one rugby reporter described it:

Moment of the match: We can go for any of the tries, but early in the game Hurricanes fullback Cory Jane was pole-axed by an attempted clearance from Waratahs flyhalf Kurtley Beale - and that without even making much of an attempt to charge it down. All he got for his 'effort' was a bloodied nose and some jeers from the crowd for what they call a 'falcon' in Australia - hitting the ball with your head without intending to do so!

From Deadspin via Green and Gold Rugby.

Covering rugby for AOL this afternoon is a bit of an American indulgence at this point. Anyone following the Six Nations Rugby tournament was already well aware of Saturday's outcomes before Chris Berman went rumbling and stumbling to 12 hours of Sunday Super Bowl coveage. However, for the rest of us swimming in the American media stream, Das FanHaus is going back back back back to the big match between Wales and England.

Much had been said about the heavily favored English team, and the relative ease with which they would dispatch their Welsh brethren. Favored by as much as 25 points, roughly 4-5 American touchdowns, the match was considered an afterthought well into the proceedings. With England leading 19-6, the Welsh came storming back scoring 20 unanswered points in 15 minutes. While the English had the talent and dominated the statistics to that point, they were unable to stop the onslaught and overcome their relatively sloppy play. Wales, to their credit, played a fairly flawless game, conceding few errors to the favorites. The win was their first at England in 20 years.

The match was an auspicious start to this years Six Nations Championship, with France dominating Scotland and Ireland squeaking by Italy. Week 2 begins this Saturday as Wales moves one step closer to a British sweep with a home match against Scotland while Ireland heads to France. England will try to right itself Sunday at Italy.

(HT: BBC Sport)

Scouring the internet for some kind of explanation, for any of this, we kept coming up with the same story. We don't really understand a word of it, but maybe its because we're both American and not really rugby fans. Apparently, Kiwi rugby fans enjoy wearing the "Borat" style of bikini (at right) to rugby matches. So many people, in fact, that the authorities felt compelled to ban the clothing-style from rugby competitions in plea to the fans' "sense of decency," citing that rugby will be a "family event." There could be some kind of awful costume malfunction, and no one wants that, not one bit. Still, we're trying to figure out how people thought this was a good idea in the first place.

(HT: The Sun)

Not much more polish can be put on such a headline when Australian marsupials and amateur track and fielding are involved. The exact details of the endangering incident now coming to light, and two Western Force players, Scott Fava and Richard Brown were fined $11,000 and $5,000 respectively for their mistreatment of the adorably copper deficient quokka. The Australian goes on to describe the sentencing:

The money will be paid to the conservation foundation on Rottnest Island, where witnesses described seeing the men tormenting the quokkas, "hammer throwing" one by its tail and trapping another under a milk crate. Authority chairman Laurie O'Meara said he believed the club had dealt with the issue swiftly and effectively, and the money far exceeded what they could have expected if they had pursued the players in court.

Hammer throwing a quokka? Why? The wonders of binge drinking, of course. Fava has been enlightened by his quokka tossing and following punishment. In the face of a stiff fine and community service, he has sworn off binge drinking. Not drinking, mind you, just binge drinking.

(H/T: Deadspin)

Das FanHaus is constantly trying to break down the barriers of unfortunate national stereotypes, but we will never hesitate to pounce on those instances that remind us why they exist in the first place. Pounce like a snarky ring-tailed lemur we will, or perhaps some kind of comic relief meerkat. The Super 14's Western Force are the latest victims of internet woodland justice for mistreating the lovably endangered quokkas of the Australian veldts and scrublands.

A quokka is a small marsupial weighing between 2.5kg and 5 kg, and is unable to be fruitful and multiply due to a copper deficiency. Their natural predators are foxes and domestic cats, who apparently control Western Australia's trace copper market with iron paws. Now, according to a report in The Daily Telegraph, quokkas can add rugby training to their woes, the adorable scamps being tossed about for resistance work.

The most confusing thing about this to Das FanHaus is the relatively light weight being used to train burly rugby players for their battles in the trenches, scrums, and mauls of the Super 14. The little guys can't weigh more than 5 kg, and that's like 11lbs or three-quarters of a stone. Why not use an actual stone? I'm sure they're easier to find and behave more like a rugby ball.

Some additional explanation might be needed for why Russell Crowe will be a guest in the Monday Night Football booth tonight. Our pal Michael David Smith laments that Crowe will only be asked about his movies and whether Denzel talks about his son on the St. Louis Rams practice squad, but what most Americans don't know is that Crowe loves his football -- albeit a different kind of football.

Crowe, a native of New Zealand, is a majority owner of the South Sydney Rabbitohs of the National Rugby League in Australia. He's planning on bringing his Souths to Jacksonville in January for an exhibition match against the Leeds Rhinos, the current champions of the European Super League.

It only makes sense that Crowe will want to promote that game in the city where it's happening, and what better place to do it than at the biggest NFL game of the season? After all, rugby league is a very accessible game for fans of the NFL -- even if our pal Matt Ufford likes to call it "watered-down rugby," since it lacks all the rucking and mauling of rugby union.

England's surprising run in the Rugby World Cup didn't quite have its fairy tale ending, as Percy Montgomery kicked four penalty goals to lead South Africa to a 15-6 win in the Final. The Springboks hoisted the Webb Ellis trophy for the first time since 1995.

Truth be told, this Final lacked the excitement of previous matches, as both teams settled into a field position battle. Neither allowed a try during the game.The change in strategy was good for England, who lost a 36-0 blowout to South Africa early in the competition.

The Springboks, however, still dominated the lineout and forced England into enough errors to create scoring opportunities for Montgomery, whose accurate kicking ensured South Africa would finish the competition undefeated. The only more impressive nation throughout this World Cup was Argentina, who lost only to the Springboks in the semifinals and upset host nation France twice for a third-place finish. There is talk that Argentina will be invited to join the Tri Nations competition with South Africa, Australia and New Zealand as early as next summer.

This will likely be the final Rugby World Cup before rugby unions around the world adopt the new Experimental Law Variations (ELVs), which were designed to bring more free-flowing play to rugby. This game probably could have used them. Regardless, it will be interesting to see how the ELVs impact the game and the countries that play it.