Next Saturday, your UT Dallas Rugby Club travels to Irving to play the University of Dallas Rugby Club.  This will be our 2nd and final meeting against this club and our last league match of the fall season.

   UD will be looking to redeem themselves from an earlier loss to UT Dallas and try to end their 2 game losing skid.  UT Dallas will be playing in hostile territory and UD can and will be stronger than our first meeting.  UD is a division 2 club and their strength will be in their forward pack, but we can’t over look their back line either.   

    We must continue to play as a team and work together in all aspects of the game.   



The standings for the Lonestar Conference are in and here they are:
 North/Team              Wins             Loss              Tie            Points
Midwestern St              2                   2                                      12
UT Dallas                     4                   0                                      24
UD                               1                   3                                        9
SMU                            1                   2                                        5
LeTorneau                   1                   2                                        7

South/Team              Wins             Loss              Tie            Points
Texas St. II                  2                     1                                      9
St. Edward’s II             0                     3                                      3
Angelo St.                   1                      1                  1                  9
UTSA                          2                      1                  1                16
Lamar                         2                      1                                       13

 Saturday, Dec. 1st is our final league match of the year against the University of Dallas in Irving.  Since many of you will be traveling to Dallas for this match, 
 Sunday, Dec. 2nd. join us at Sonny Bryan's Smokehouse in Richardson starting at 2:30pm and should take about 2 hours, we'll be in the Mustang Room, everyone will order their own food, then join us.
Sonny Bryan's Smokehouse, 1251 West Campbell Road #240  Richardson, TX 75080 (972) 664-9494

   This was going to be a different kind of day, and I found out how different it was when it took me 2 hours to drive from Irving to Richardson to pick up a rental car for my trip to Oklahoma. Once I was on the road I did my best to push the limits of speed without getting a ticket from Texas DPS or Oklahoma State Troopers (I was successful in not getting one).  
 
    I apologize for not being with the lads when they were going through pre-match warm ups.  At 1:00pm. and me still being 75 miles outside of Norman, I called Stephen Boeding, talked with him about players there.  Then spoke with Captain John Bradshaw and gave him the line up for the  match.

   I got to the pitch at 2:10 and found that OU had already scored 2 trys and then witnessed a 3rd try.  I had a feeling the game might be like this, considering OU is a top division 1 club, and they were playing their second and third side players, but when you practice with the best, it tends to rub off.  Which was my reasoning for scheduling a match like this, not to embarrass the lads but to get them used to playing larger clubs and being able to hold their own against anyone.

The line up for the first half:
Props – Erbold Uran and Nate Pyle, Hooker – Alex Chi, Second Rows – Jimmy Chi and Weston Hearne, Flankers – Ben Bales and Mohammad Nadeem, Number 8 – Steven Hale,  Scrumhalf– Stephen Boeding, Flyhalf – Vince Dutton, Inside Center Luke Lewis, Outside Center – Cameron Brussard, Wings – Arturo Sifuentes and Alejandro Chinchilla, Fullback – Joe Conaway.
Substitute – Ola in for Steven Hale, Ola played flanker for his very first rugby match.  My thought was to get him out there and tackle every OU ball carrier he could catch.  And that’s exactly what he did, while being lost out there at times he played very well.

   As I stated in the section above the lineup, OU was a bigger more experienced side and they took advantage to every missed tackle we made or if we made contact with an OU ball carrier, he was able to keep his feet and dish off
to one of his supporters. One of the more high lights of the afternoon was watching our forward pack play even
with OU’s pack in scrums. Those forwards did a great job fighting to every scrum and never backed down to the
challenge.  But with 4 members of our starting XV missing this gave the other guys that haven’t been able to log
much match time some valuable game experience.  

The second half line up:
As far as the forwards go, no changes were made, partly because we didn’t have any other forwards. The back line was now: Scrumhalf – Cameron Brussard, Flyhalf – Vince Dutton, Inside Center – Brian Martinez, Outside Center – Luke Lewis, Wings – Nabe Tessema and Marc Hudak, Fullback – Joe Conaway.

   The second half was a much better showing for our guys, Cameron was able to make things happen with his legs, which opened space for Vince to attack.  This proved to be the key to our play in this half, with the ball being moved out to our guys with space to attack and good passing, we were able to make into OU’s half a few times.  Due to the
physical nature of the game, it did take its toll with some of our guys and I replaced some of them with OU alumni. 
One of OU’s alum replacements was Kelton Miller a gifted player who I known since he was a little kid, having played prop against his father back in Southern California.  Kelton managed to bring a little life into our guys with his infectious play and tackles. At one point in the match, the referee awarded us a penalty 5 meters from their goal line, Kelton took a quick tap and scored our first try, Vince made the conversion for our first 7 points of the game.  A few minutes later, Vince kicked the ball deep into OU territory, with the line out mark about 5 meters from their own goal, they attempted a quick line out, but Alejandro intercepted the quick thrown in and dove in to score our second try of
the afternoon.  Vince made his second conversion to give us 14 points on the day.

   The match soon ended and while neither coach was keeping score for the match, the referee came to us after the match and told us for what it’s worth the second half score was OU 19 - UTD 14.  Both coaches for OU came to me and told me how well the lads had played.  They had also done some scouting of us, either by way of contacting clubs we had already played or searched out video on “You Tube” and they felt that Vince Dutton was the best
player on the day.  His kicking for territory and ball and running skills were very good and wished that they had him playing for them, but I’m grateful that he’s with me and UT Dallas.

   There was a match played after our match and our players were invited to play, but at the time many of them thanked OU but decided to watch, but then out of the blue Arturo walked over to OU and asked to play, then Ola, Marc and Ben went out and played more rugby.  After that match, we were invited to OU’s club house for pizza and
refreshments.  Our players went and talked with the OU guys and I think everyone had a good day, in spite of whatever the score was.

   The University of Oklahoma really liked playing us and would like to continue this and maybe in the near future become a rivalry.  So next year, OU will travel to Richardson to play us on our field.  Details still need to be worked out.  We look forward to playing OU next year and with another year under our belts we will be better.

   As I told the guys after the match, they had nothing to be ashamed of, they played hard and each member gave his all on the field.  That’s the spirit of rugby, you give your all while the game is on and then you enjoy the company of your opposite after the match.  A special thanks goes out to the OU coaches for accomdating us in this match, Kenny Forhand for all his coaching insights in the past and I'm sure the future as well.  I appreciate talking with him about rugby on how to improve the game, players and as a coach.

               
    On a beautiful fall evening with temperatures in the low 70’s and good winds blowing from the south, your UT Dallas Rugby Club took on cross town rivals SMU, in their 4th league match of this season.
               
    The match started as scheduled with a very competent referee in the middle of things.  The reason I’m stating this is because earlier in the week, we were having difficulties getting one for this match, but in the end, Traci Schmidtke accepted the invitation to come to UTD from Austin to referee our match.

 The line up for the match:
Props – Erbold Uran and Nate Pyle, Hooker – AJ Paradowski, Second Rows – Michael Janus and Weston Hearne, Flankers – Mohammad Nadeem and Ahmad Moayyed, Number 8 – John Bradshaw, Scrumhalf – Cameron Brussard, Flyhalf –Vince Dutton, Inside Center – Dominic Prestia, Outside Center – Trevor Smith, Wings – Marc Hudak and Alejandro Chinchilla, Fullback – Steven Shaffer.

Reserves: Ben Bales in for John Bradshaw (injury 10thminute of match), Marcus Burnside in for Steven Shaffer (beginning of second half), Luke Lewis in for Trevor Smith (beginning of second half), Justin Thompson in for Alejandro Chinchilla (beginning of second half), Brian Martinez in for Vince Dutton (60th minute of match), Brandon Miller (60th minute of match), Auturo Sifuentes in for Marc Hudak (60th minute of match).

   The match was a good one; SMU was better prepared than the last time we played them in a league match.  Both teams were moving back and forth on the field, but it was UTD who slotted the first points of the match.  From there the lads never looked back, SMU through a lot at the lads, but they responded very well to every challenge they faced.  Traci was in top form, calling penalties against both sides, and due to the fact that she maintained the Texas Rugby Union policy of only one coach inside the ropes, since Bear does more talking to the lads than I do, he was the coach inside and I roamed the spectator side of the ropes. Bear did a great job barking out instructions to the guys and that’s part of the reason the lads responded as they did.

   The first half ended with UT Dallas holding a commanding lead over SMU, 47 to 14.  The second half began and after replacing 3 players, not because they weren’t playing well, they were playing spectacular rugby, it’s was just time to bring in some fresh legs to keep our defense and attack going forward and not allow SMU to get back into the
game.  Which is exactly what they did, they kept the pressure on SMU, with Cameron Broussard running what seemed like circles around the defense.  Vince had his way up the middle and around the ends of that same defense
to name a few, but it was the entire forward pack that did most of the damage against SMU.  They constantly won
possession from every ruck, maul and scrum.  Without those guys doing all the dirty work, the backs wouldn’t have had the success they had.  
                
    Some of the forwards, both Flankers Ahmad and Mohammad played very well chasing the ball carrier down and were endless in their duties.  The front row, Erbold, AJ and Nate took care of their opposite front row in scrums and were instrumental in a number of pick and go’s during the game.  Second Rows Michael and Weston were equally impressive. Michael making his first start in a league match played very well, his line out was good and he was all over the field.  Weston took this evening to do more pick and goes and basically got around the field more than I’ve ever seen him do.  Normally Weston is the kind of player who’s always there doing the dirty work, but he’s like a ghost, you know he’s there, you just don’t see it.  John Bradshaw started out at number 8 due to Sunshine being sick and played the first 10 minutes before suffering a cut that required stitches and Ben Bales came in to replace him and was very steady in his play, thanks.

   The second half was pretty much like the first half; UTD never gave up in their pressure and with constant pressure kept SMU always defending.  UT Dallas was able to score 3 more Trys and kept SMU from scoring any more.  The final score UT Dallas 73, SMU 14.

   Try scorers, Cameron Brussard (3), AJ Paradowski, Vince Dutton (3), Marc Hudak (2), Dominic Prestia and Luke Lewis.  Totaled as a team 11 Trys.  Vince Dutton was 9 for 11 on conversions.

   Next weekend your UT Dallas Rugby Club travels to Norman, OK to play a friendly match against the University of Oklahoma. This is a match that we want to use to keep our edge against higher divisional clubs so that if we continue our winning and wind up in the playoffs we’re able to compete against clubs that may be bigger or better (on paper than us.  As I get details about next week’s game, including directions I’ll post them.
   The University of Oklahoma Rugby Club is not only a Premier Collegiate Club but they also have a division 1 side.  They play agaisnt clubs all across the country like Texas A&M, LSU, Cal to name a few, but for our match we will be playing against their 2nd and 3rd side players.  This will give their guys an opportunity to get some valuable match experience as well as your UT Dallas Rugby Club.