The match began on time, a huge crowd of supporters were intermixed with reserve UTD players and behind them. In an effort to keep our supporters close to us for that support, I chose to keep our lads on the east side of the field, which also allowed the natural grass rise to be like stadium seating for everyone at the game. The real reason I
changed sides, is so that we could be closer to our supporters. We could feed off of their words and they would be there for us at the end of the game, to join in our team tunnel.
Back to the match, UTD kicked off to SMU and began to show dominance even from that first kick off, we pinned them deep in their own territory before they were able to kick the ball away for a bit of breathing room. During play in the early moments of the match, both teams traded the ball in trying to set up the other for a knockout blow. That knockout blow came 6 minutes into the match, with Cameron Broussard scoring the first try of the day and if my memory serves me correct. Cameron picked up the ball in the back of a ruck and dove over both
clubs into the goal area to score that try, gutsy move, but sweet.
The game was very good because I saw that guys that don't normally touch the ball were actually getting to good
time running with it, which showed me that guys were getting more comfortable with each other and having the confidence to make and catch those passes. You UT Dallas kept SMU on their heels all day long, giving them glimpse of daylight only to shut them down if they tried to take it.
Defensively we played very well, we weren't the same team SMU saw last October, we were clearly better and
by the same comparison, SMU wasn't the same team we saw. While it felt good to begin our righting of the ship as I mentioned earlier. I am extremely happy for my lads, they have worked hard and now deserve the fruits of their hard work, but I felt somewhat bad for 2 players on the SMU side, both of which I coached back then. But there was a bright side for SMU, at half time I was informed that an SMU prop had injured his ribs and in the spirit of good sportsmanship, UT Dallas gave them prop Jonathan Holmes and he played very good for SMU against his friends. He is and will be a valuable asset for our club in the future.
From that point UTD began scoring at will and either Vince or Luke were attempting conversions, below is
the list of those who scored.
1 Try - Steven Hale, Vince Dutton, Brandon Miller, Alejandro Chinchilla. 2 Trys- Cameron Broussard, Dominic Prestia, 4 Trys - Nathan Sohadaseni
Conversions - Vince made 5 of 11, Luke Taran made 2 of 3.
The score at the end of the first half UT Dallas - 31, SMU - 0, as I began to make substitutions
during this half in hopes to somewhat stop the bleeding of scores, was to get as many guys valuable match experience and until the referee catches me making more than my allotted 8 reserve moves, I put everyone in at one point or another. I apologize to David Weisser and Chris Park for not getting them in the game.
As things would have it, the second half scored more points than the first half, the match ended UTD - 74, SMU - 0.
This match brought an end of the first season, league matches in which we were 5 - 0 and our first undefeated season in club/school history. During the 5 match league season we scored 228 points and averaged 45.6 per game, while giving up only 54 points, average 10.8 per game.
Our undefeated season and number1 seed in the playoffs now gives us home field advantage throughout the playoffs. We have this coming weekend off due to the USA 7's Rugby Tournament in Las Vegas, NV and this gives us important time off to heal any injuries we've suffered in the past 3 matches.
Currently we are scheduled to host Lamar on Sunday, Feb. 19th here on the UT Dallas campus, in which I am trying to secure, and I will be in communication with Lamar and the Texas Rugby Union in the next few days to secure our playoff schedule is good to go and I will post and notify you all of every detail along the way.
This was a huge win, a VERY good win for us, I never imagined that we would be this dominate, my earlier thought was just to be competitive, but since we are where we are. We're going to take this as far as we can. Thank you for all your support,