Flash back a year ago when St. Edward's Univ. came up to play a friendly match, the difference between then and Friday, lightning. Yep there was lightning and rain falling all during our time we waited for a window to play. Friday no lightning and no rain. So we loaded up all the cars and moved our scrimmage to another venue that isn't as nice as UT Dallas but they do have a grass football field that we could utilize.
Once I got everyone in cars and moving to a junior high school about 2 blocks from UT Dallas everyone began warming up. We had about 40+ players all wanting to have a go at this game they call rugby, UT came with 25.
We got things under way at 7:01 (excellent) played 20 minutes of good hard rugby. I was pleased to watch the Comet lads, most had some sort of experience and went out there an played a good period of rugby against a slightly bigger team.
The second period was a little more uneasy to watch, this all 14 players who had never played an actual rugby match, the 15 player had played but another position away from the scrums.
We tried to play a third period, but with sunlight leaving as fast as it did even with all the clouds we were only able to play a few minutes with the rest of the lads that hadn't played.
In each period, I thought the lads played well, especially being their first contact against a different colored jersey. Now that we have this out of the way, the learning should be faster and better. And those that got only a few minutes of that third period will get more match time since theirs got cut short.
All in all, I think everyone got a great taste of this fun and exciting game. I heard from some of the lads that they actually ran with the ball and that was good. We have a long season and a lot more games scheduled, so everyone will have more opportunities to play more.