In this scrimmage, I sat some of the starting XV down, to give players that haven't had much playing time. This was a huge move. For we were going to play to win, but play to gain valuable experience and experience it is we got.
In my opinion, the lads played extremely well, considering the weather, their opponent and their overall experience. I saw some things in players that I hadn't seen in practice. It shows me that they do want to play, no matter how much a disadvantage they may be at, they're going to go out and do what they do - play rugby.
I wasn't keeping score because it was a scrimmage and we were able to score a try among the trys that UNT had rolled in. I was pleased with the outcome.
On Saturday evening, this time the weather was a bit warmer than Wednesday, 45 degrees, oh boy a heat wave. The UT Dallas Men took on the alumni of the original UT Dallas Rugby. It was great seeing all the old graduated players and they showed the current UT Dallas Rugby Club how it's done.
The funniest event of the evening, was my Assistant Head Coach Bear playing with the alumni, taking a pass and rumbling, stumbling down the field and rolling close to our 5m line only to have the ball knocked out of his hand into goal and bouncing off the goal post into the surprised arms of a current UT Dallas player. After that rumble down the field Coach Bear was done for awhile. In fact, he was told there was oxygen on the sidelines for him to use.
On this night, the current players played exceptionally well and again everyone got time to have a good run, at least 20 minutes if not more.
We were keeping score, but if the alumni needed to know if we were to keep score of the match, the final score might have been roughly UT Dallas Alumni 56, UT Dallas Current 15.
On Saturday, Nov. 22nd, your UT Dallas Rugby Club hosts Letourneau University in our last Home match of the Fall season and year. The match will kick off at 7:00pm and hopefully the weather will be maybe a little warmer than what we've experienced this last week.
A lot has happened to Letourneau since our opening match with them in Longview. They lost their coaches and have been struggling since, while we have made improvements, suffering the last 2 losses haven't been helpful to rebuilding. Letourneau is still strong and they still have the horses that beat us that first night, but now it's up to the lads to right that ship.
We have 2 practices left before the Thanksgiving break, and with the men having still this coming league match, both the men and women have their final league matches in San Angelo in early December, more on that as we get closer to that actual match, right now we have to concentrate on one game at a time.