UC Santa Cruz was down at Scrum by the Sea, lovingly put on every year by UC San Diego. We thought we were going to field two sides but for some reason or other we didn't get two teams in. Which ended up being chill and we just made full subs at the half. Which is awesome that we're starting to build up a squad that's big enough to do that. Played our first match of the year against Univ of Arizona was a bit of a struggle. Our rookies were still getting used to the idea of a flat defense and not playing sandlot soccer. It didn't help that they had a pretty brutal 8 + 10 who refused to go down in the tackle and had stripping arms that would make a D1 flanker jealous. Yup so our ability to set up rucks really suffered as a result (cause our rookies thought rugby was supposed to be played at this constant, pop the ball out of contact pace. The second match was a lot smoother, it helped that it was against UCLA's B side so the fundamentals were there, rucks were cleaner and even existed. Oh, forgot, we won both games by a couple of tries which says a lot about our attacking potential. We had almost no possession and territory in the first match and still managed to pull off the win. We scored off of probably the two times we had the ball. The second match against UCLA B had three tries, including a sweet little chip over the top by our fly which she recovered, was tackled, placed, and then was picked up and carried over by our 8.
Right so that was the end of day 1.
Day 2: A good match against Davis B (who was fielding more of a split side) at this point we had some significant improvements in our phases and defensive organization. We still had the odd flanker hanging out with the fullback...^^; oh and I scored a pretty cool try off a tap and go about 30 m out, ehheh which was good fun 'cause I tried out the whole juking thing in order to shift the point of contact and it worked pretty damn well (thank you Berkeley). We won that one pretty handily and it was just a nice clean match with a number of buddies on the other team, like UCD's 10 Jen and our 8s twin.
Davis' 8 on the left and our 8 on the right. Did I mention they both wear scrum caps?
What else...then we played a rather scrappy match against Humboldt. It was sloppy on both sides but unfortunately a certain player on their team felt it necessary to bring violence and dirty play into the mix. Unfortunately a yellow card didn't seemed to deter her...anyhoo their scrum-half was quite nice. We beat them handily but they scored the first try against us in the tournament.
Last game of the day was against old friends and league rivals Cal State Sacramento. With a number of grizzled vets they pretty much ran riot over us. They had been slaughtering teams all tournament and I think we held them to about five or so against us. It wasn't pretty but at least it was pretty fun all around. Their lineout wasn't as effective as normal but it's 'cause they were training in a new hook. But their backline was pretty lethal with no one on are team willing or able to tackle them.
So four wins one loss...not bad. I propped for the tournament, which was a pretty new experience for me. I really need to learn how to lift because I was getting frustrated being so useless during lineouts (I wasn't particularly helpful at fire). I'm pretty happy with the prop pair (excluding me) that we have, our locks got some work in, we have some really nifty rookie flankers. We have a lot of aggressive speed in our backs and for the most part their handling isn't too bad and they aren't shy of putting pressure and tackling. Our lineouts definitely need work, it's a big adjustment with completely new pods and new hookers. (the ball's going in wonky to pods that are only getting halfway up). Our scrum is improving, everyone has a better grasp of what is necessary to hold a scrum up...now we just have to rebuild it so they're working together and really popping the other side (we were kind of sitting ducks at the tournament, and never got clean ball because of it). Not too many injuries, a bruised rib, dislocated knee, broken shoulder, and a neck injury scare. I swear it just isn't scrum by the sea if an ambulence doesn't drive on the field at least 4 times a day.
Networking-wise it was pretty cool to see the old farts on the teams for probably the last time. Rabbit from U of A, props from pretty much every team...ahhh nostalgia. Speaking of which it was pretty funny I got to talk to Oxy and apparently they've been wearing the same set of jerseys for the last 5+ years...and there's not a single rip on 'em. I don't know how that works but either way I'm jealous. Well I got confirmation from the woman herself...Laura Cabrera is retired (she was down there helping coaching UC Berkeley) I was surprised to see that she wasn't down in Florida at least helping out the Blues. I talked to Ellen Owens head coach of UCB about showing up to a few of her practices to just watch her coach and she was super nice about it =] Oh and total sidenote I heard this rumor from my coach that Kathy Flores is going to coach the new Univ San Francisco team that's joining our league. Heh well if that's true holy shit it's a whole new ballgame. We'll see how that develops.
Uh this following stuff is from a post that I was working on right after the Berkeley Hit like a bear clinic:
I love learning from the All Blues. I was a lot more open/less shy about asking questions this year and as a result got a lot more out of it (player specific). Mari Wallace was working with the hookers and some of the key words / phrases she talked about was being responsible for ones own balance and stability. The technique that they were training involved the hooker having only slightly offset feet with wide footing, bind on the number, it's more important to have flexed have engaged arms, hooking foot used as handbrake and lifted on the engage (core to keep body even, props not leaning over to bind either, locks are responsible (new bind) to keep front row together this will allow props to focus on engaging square. Props should rest their outside arm on their thigh/knee to maintain balance while setting up, also ruck post x y and their responsibilities. and practice new style of throw in, bend at the hips then knees, work on my core! Yea those are my scribbled notes...sorry I'm too lazy to edit them into something coherent.
----------------------
*sigh* I wrote an 8 pg paper yesterday in 3 hours I'm just a little too tired to make sense.
but long story short I love how much you can learn from them.
There's so much more to talk about but this is it. I'm tired. Run with it. More pictures, stories, gossip, and techniques to come. Next next sunday we're playing Stanford. Hopefully we'll do better then St. Mary's who lost +100-0 or something like that. Sorry for the long delay on this post. I've been busy trying to find a job, a house, and pass my classes.
1 comment:
KLK I am glad Maurie is spreading the gospel of the Chron scrumming techniques, so named after the great all back scrumming coach.
Of course there are variations even among the coaches in the women's game. The team I coach uses this system and routinely dominates scrums that are easily 250-300 lbs heavier.
Post a Comment