The match began ten minutes ahead of schedule with referee determining that both sides were itching to have a go and he was willing and ready to let them go at each other. As expected both clubs were a bit tentative at hitting each other in the beginning, but that wore off and sparks began to fly. As UTD players attacked the Tyler defense with a sustained ground attack we were moving down the field. And 10 minutes into the match UTD scored a Try but we missed the conversion. Getting the ball back on the restart, it took us another 4 minutes to slot another Try and this time the conversion was made. Then UTD got alittle over confident and began to miss a tackle here and there to allow Tyler back into the game, but that soon changed. UTD counterrucked the ball away from Tyler, then with precision passing and hard running we scored another Try and made another conversion. The 1st half ended with UTD 19, Tyler JC 10.
The line up for the first half: 1. Nick Walker, 2. A.J. Paradowski, 3. Erbold Uran, 4. John Bradshaw, 5. Liam Walter, 6. Ben Bales, 7. Zachary Ussery, 8 Steven Hale, 9. Cameron Broussard, 10. Stephen Boeding, 11. Steven Shaffer, 12. Nathan Sohadaseni, 13. Brandon Miller, 14. Marc Hudac, 15. Ross Chan.
Reserves in the first half for injuries, Jimmy Chu and Dwight.
The second half began with only one impact player coming on and getting Weston, Jacob, and Sean back to play for us again, and we gave them Ben, Liam and Jimmy to help out the Tyler side. We began the second half where we finnished the first half and that was scoring Tries and tackling every Tyler player that ran with the ball. For the first time since we began playing rugby this year, your UT Dallas Rugby club members opened up a flurry of tries (6) and looked to attack Tyler at every opportunity they could find. In all UTD scored 6 tries in that half, but only converted one of those tries, we really need to find us a kicker.
This was a very good match for us to put together some things, work on other things. We've had a real good run in the two league matches we've played, starting slow but gathering momentum and eventually taking command of the match. The final score UTD 51, Tyler JC 15.
Tries scored by the following UTD players, Sean Harris (2 Tries), Alejandro Chinchilla, Nathan Sohadaseni (4 Tries), Steven Hale, Marc Hudac. Conversions: Stephen Boeding (3)
The line up for the second half: 1. Josef Velten, 2. Dwight, 3. Erbold, 4. Weston, 5.Ben, 6. Jacob, 7. Zachary, 8. Steven, 9. Cameron, 10. Stephen, 11. Alejandro Chinchilla, 12. Nathan, 13. Brandon, 14. Marc, 15. Ross
Reserves in the second half, Folajimmie Ogunrayl, Richard Clubine, Scott Fahle, Chris Park.
Next weekend (11/19) your UT Dallas Rugby Club travels to Wichita Falls, TX to play Midwestern State University (MSU) in their final match of the fall season. This match will be a real test of where we've come from since beginning practice this past August. MSU will be big and the scouting report is that they like to play 10 man rugby, meaning that they will let their forwards bang out as much and long as they have possession of the ball. They ruck and counter ruck well, so our forwards will have to be on their toes and stand firm on the pitch and make every attempt at poaching when ever there is an opportunity. More on MSU is that they don't use all of their backs and those backs may not be strong tacklers.
With that being said, I'm working on our line up and game plan for this coming weekend, since we won't have Nick Walker or Ben Bales with us. They have family obligations and family comes first, besides we'll have them next year and we also have quality players to fill in for them.
If any of you plan on making the drive to Wichita Falls for the game, I'll have directions and will post them for you by Wednesday (11/16).
Just another thought for you, since the MSU match is our last one of the Fall season, I was thinking about having a Fall Banquet/Dinner for the players and family at a location somewhere near the campus of UT Dallas somewhere around maybe the first Saturday in December. I'm going to begin working on some of the details and will pass on that info to you when I know more.
Thanks for taking time to read all this and as always if have any questions or concerns, please contact me.