But I'm not going to get ahead of myself. For those of you at the dinner you heard me speak about the spring season and what we have, so I'm going to take this time to run down some things for everyone.
1. We have confirmation from the school that we will have:
a. Our own set of Goal Posts, they came in this past November.
b. Our first HOME match on the UT Dallas campus is Saturday, Jan. 21st. We'll play Sam Houston St.
c. Our first Home league match will be Feb. 4th against SMU. See our schedule for more info if needed.
2. If we continue to play as well as we have and we've already locked a spot in the upcoming playoffs. Currently we're playing for home field advantage, the following could happen:
a. UT Dallas Rugby Club could host our first playoff match ever on campus.
b. If we maintain our number one ranking in Texas and we win the above playoff match, we would host the Texas Rugby Union (TRU) Division III Championships.
3. Again, if the stars align themselves for us and we win the TRU DIII Championships, more would be coming our way:
a. We would be traveling to Wayne St. in Nebraska to play in the National Small College Rugby Organization (NSCRO) sweet 16 playoffs.
1. This is a 2 day tournament, with 2 matches on Saturday and the winners meet for the championship on Sunday. Currently the Texas Champion is scheduled to play the tournament host Wayne St. University. Again, not to get ahead of myself, but more info on this will be coming.
2. If we were to have the luck and skills to make it through these two very tough matches, we would then be traveling to Glendale, Colorado for the NSCRO final four championships. Again, we would be playing in a 2 day rugby tournament, with the winners from Saturday meeting on Sunday for the championship.
While we are doing quite well in our competition here in Texas, if we do go to Nebraska and/or Colorado. We are going to have to develope more of the players we have and prepare them for the even stiffer competition we'll meet later. We'll need the support from every member of our rugby family, everyone will have some stake in this and we'll play hard to go as far as we can and I can only hope it does end in Glendale. I think this would be a tremondous event for the lads and also for the parents and friends traveling with us during this journey. Winning each match is not only for the lads playing this great game, but it's also for the families of those players, because without your support none of this would be possible.
As a coach, I've had my fun playing for a National Championship, but this isn't my time. It's their time and I am going to make every effort to give them the tools and teach them how to play so that they can make it happen. Everyone on this club gets to play, there are no tryouts and the journey for a playoff or championship is made by each player making small sacrifices to attend practice a few hours a week. To drive to whereever that weeks match is and play fair, but hard.
During our time off from Rugby, I'm going to post for everyone some tips about Rugby, how and where the game began, the positions and some about the laws of the game. To help make this game even more enjoyable for you as a spectator. If anyone has a question about the game or suggestions on what you'd like to know more about, please send me an e-mail and I'll answer those in my posts.
Thank you again for all the support you give the UT Dallas Rugby Football Club.