DRFC Men Match Summary vs Schuylkill River – 8/27/2016

With their full A-side and D3 side in tow, and our team having new pieces that haven’t played together yet (or having been a few years) our flat out new to rugby, are day was hard from the start. Right from the get go, it was a tough match, with Schuylkill’s size and athleticism on display. They started the match with a drop goal 35, and then shortly after with a try and conversion.

But DRFC held strong in the scrums, not losing any all day, and took 2 from them. Our lineouts were rough with 2 new guys in the group, and receiving kick-offs were equally difficult and things we will have to work on. But, with good rucking, and scrumming, we gave ourselves the opportunity to have offensive attempts. While we couldn’t mount too many phase plays, we didnt have too. We did a great job creating space with good footwork, and finished strong to convert fast breaks into points. So much so that we ended the half 28-13.

The second half was more of the same on the offensive front. Scrums were great, rucks were solid, but we committed way too many penalties later in the match. Maybe it was complacency, maybe it was exhaustion from the match and heat, but it was definitely too many, allowing them to move the field repeatedly unchallenged.

Overall, we were dynamic off of breaks and turnaround ball running well at angles. We need to continue to work on line-outs and kickoffs, as well as spreading the field defensively. They were a good side, but we were able to keep them in 4th gear and never really click. They busted through our defense from time to time, but we did a great job of chasing them down. But for a first go at it and versus a good D1 team, we should be very proud of the effort we posted and shall look to build on that moving forward.

Scoring Summary:

First Half: 0-3, 0-10, 7-10, 14-10, 21-10, 28-10

Second Half: 35-10, 35 – 17, 40-17, 45-17, 50-17, 50-22, 55 -22 

Try Scorers:

Kevin Hockings (3)

Brendan McCandless

Max Compo

Eric French

Dylan Hamilton

Jake Leidy

A-Side player of the match

Kevin Hockings

B-side Summary

SR brought their D3 side to play, and we matched them up with 6 of our new guys, some North East Irish, and rotated a few of our A-side to play. With 30 minute halves, everyone got plenty of rugby to learn against a good side. Obviously sometime it looked like a cluster @$#%, but guys were running hard with ball in hand, getting to rucks, and learning as they went. While fun was had by all, the score line was 3 tries to 6.

Again, overall, great rugby day in otherwise was a hot mess, end of August, dog day of summer. Can’t wait for the next match to report on.