As we approached the stadium we witnessed all kinds and shapes of ruggers all there for a single reason, to watch our national team beat Italy. With great seats, and there really wasn’t a bad seat in this new stadium. I was impressive listening to all those voices singing out our national anthem and the Italians were well represented as well.
The match was good, the Eagles did lose the match to Italy, 30 to 10, but the real excitement was connecting with some UT Dallas players, players and coaches I refereed in matches before I finally hung up my boots, seeing various TRU executive members and reconnecting with coaches and players who my brother and I played against back in Southern California who now live in Texas.
A special surprise was finding out that the coach from UC Santa Barbara (who I watched grow up in Southern California) had made the trip to Houston for the match. A good man and we discussed a possibility of a mini tour to Santa Barbara with members from UT Dallas and possibly UT San Antonio and UT Austin during spring break for some sun, rugby and fun. If this mini tour were to happen, then we would schedule two matches there, one against Westmont College and the other against UC Santa Barbara. Right now this is only a thought, I’m discussing the terms with the coaches from the other two clubs to see if it can be worked out. A side note, if those other two clubs aren’t interested, then maybe I could take the entire UT Dallas club for this one week trip. I’ll keep everyone notified as we move on with this.
Currently, I’m working on practice schedules and what we’ll be working on during the first parts of practice leading up to our first matches in Austin. Friendly matches as I get scheduled will be posted in the Schedule and Standings portion of our web site. With having a full season under our belts, I’ll have a number of players who know what to do and when to do it and they’ll become instrumental in helping me prepare all of the new
players we’ll get this coming fall and help expedite the learning of everyone
just a little quicker and allowing everyone to get on the same
page.