All parents and fans are encouraged to bring water, food, chairs or anything you feel the lads might be able to use during this long, hot day of rugby. Nothing is too small, especially when the lads are trying to balance their classes with rugby. Both Coach Bear and I appreciate anything and everything you do to help us create a social but competitive atmosphere in them.
This year we do have a slight heads up on last year’s squad. This time last year we showed up in Austin with a group of athletes ready to make their first attempts at playing rugby. For many of them, the first match against Rice was their very first time playing against someone other than themselves.
This year, we already have one match experience and an additional coach to help watch,evaluate and pump the lads up.
We already know our first two opponents for this coming tournament. We’ll play SMU at 10:30am and then Midwestern St. at 12:30pm. Then depending on how we do in those first two matches will determine the
time we’ll play later in the day. We’re guaranteed 3 matches for the entire day and everyone will play.
I already know of 2 players that won’t be able to make the trip, Jonathan and Derrick, both freshmen and their professors stated that they weren’t given the mandatory 2 weeks’ notice to be excused from class/exam scheduled on this particular day. That’s ok, there will be many more weekends for both of the lads to catch up with the others and missing one weekend won’t hurt them. Both of them as well as the rest of the lads are working hard in practice.
Some of the lads will be driving down to Austin, Friday evening after practice. While the others will be driving down Saturday morning. Club President Nathan Sohadaseni has been working hard to insure all players have their travel documents and waivers filled out per UT Dallas requirements and I believe we’re about 95% compliant. The main thing I’m working on with Nathan’s help is to make sure all our players are registered with USA Rugby. This seems to be a small obstacle, but we’re working through this and the players are responding quite well.
A brief description of SMU and Midwestern St Rugby Club’s.
SMU has been around for some time, they tend to have a very strong side in the fall when players have gotten to school and are looking for an outlet. Last year, we played them in the fall and they put out a very good side and beat us 34 to 10. But when the game counted as it did in February, your UT Dallas Rugby Club came out strong and defeated SMU, 74 to 0. I truly expect SMU to be strong and we’ll play them well.
Midwestern St. like SMU has been around for some time, MSU as we call them are usually in at the top of the league each year and this year I don’t see them letting down any. The only time we played them last year in a league match, we came out and dominated play from the get go. This was due to the fact that we were prepared and MSU didn’t know much about us, but I expect that to change now that we’re both in the beginnings of a new season and MSU will be as much a contender as I expect us to be. But there will be no surprising them this time; they’ll be ready for us and we will be for them.
I’ll call it quits for now, and I’m looking forward to seeing all the UT Dallas supporters out there in Austin cheering for us to play well and together. If anyone has any questions or comments, as always please contact me and I’ll get
you answers.