Against the Head

My Heart says Yes

2010-09-11T22:28:00.000-07:00

...but my body and my brain say no. So I'm taking a rugby sabbatical (1 year at most). My body needs a break from the grind...I keep re-injuring myself and I really should get physical therapy on my hip. Career-wise I need to get shit done. Find myself and rate myself, I'm going to immerse myself in as much into film studies as I can and see if I like it while working my way through a practice run of the admissions process.

Now try as I might to extract rugby from my life (at least temporarily), it has become almost as bad of a distraction as being an active participant. I've had SIX fucking nightmares about it...so I'll concede...I'm an addict...a nut. Of course I've got to stay involved somehow.

I'm taking the level one officiating course this fall and I'm stoked about joining the flock of fantabulous referees in the norcal ref society. It's going to be an interesting pursuit for sure and if I'm still in the Bay during the spring I'll once again help coach my high school kids.

Of course I miss playing, every single goddamn bone in my body is screaming at me to put on my cleats and get back on the pitch, to not quit, to not disappoint my team. Loyalty, integrity, honor. @(*#*&@(#(*@ But then I have to step back and be an adult. I must concentrate on figuring out and achieving my career goals and academic ambitions.

So how does this apply to you dear reader? Well since I don't get to have my daily dose of tackling, rucking, and mauling I'll spare a little time on the side to keep tabs on my fave little region of women's rugby (not to mention satisfy my rugby hives).

In brief here are some things that happened:
The Eagles placed fifth in the world cup, the cool thing is that it got a lot more coverage then the last world cup. More about this later
Berkeley U19 didn't win a game all season
UC Santa Cruz lost in the semifinals
One of the UCSC players made the USA U20s squad and we had a rep in grizzlies
the Sacramento Amazons (senior side) did pretty well at Palo Alto 7s
UC Santa Cruz moved up to D1 this year...wooot!
SFog lost to Norcal Triple Threat for their first league game, they played the Seattle breakers this weekend, not sure who won
ABs beat the Twin City Zons this weekend for their first WPL game of the season

And here is a lovely video from Brown's Women's rugby team:

Two Words from Ploipailin Flynn on Vimeo.

It's good to be back and it'll be even better when I'm back on the pitch!

No such thing as too much rugby

2010-02-28T08:10:00.000-08:00

...unless you're my housemate and you have to deal with the smell of my muddy laundry pile just sitting there because quite literally I don't have the time to do it. I mean I'm sure I'll find time to do it eventually.

So quick summary. All Blues played the SF Fog we won handily (a game of quarters and rolling subs) but conceded a score early in the first quarter. In the last quarter the All Blues were forced to defend their try line for the majority of the last twenty but kept the fog clear. The All Blues got to blood a lot of their new young talent (a trio of U23 grizzlies entered the fray of club rugby) and some older campaigners re-entering the fight. I myself am bummed that I missed out due to a sprained ankle and foot that I acquired at the start of Thursday practice. Two weeks off no problem, hopefully I can talk my way into a lighter duty job so I don't have to clomp around on it all day at work but I have an AMAZING sports doc so email me if you're looking for one in the bay area. I'm missing the Champagne Classic as well and its a good thing too cause I wouldn't be able to play now so woohoo for saving money and boo for medical bills. I WAS going to buy new cleats and I probably still will.

The Berkeley Vigorous Gold Stars Berkeley U19 Girls Rugby team (yes that's their name) toughed out an impressive match against the Humboldt U19 team. The score was about 25-0 against us but the Gold Stars still defended with all their heart despite playing l3 vs 15 80% of the match. Unfortunately in the last ten minutes we lost another player and had to forfeit and borrow players from the other team. Our kids were super disappointed and wanted to soldier on 11 vs 15 to keep ourselves from forfeiting but it became a safety issue. Our defense is getting better and we actually had the majority of possession for the short ten minutes that we were playing 14 vs 15.

UC Santa Cruz plays Humboldt State for what is likely the last of their home games (unless USF manage to scrap together enough girls to play, or at least makes their way down here). The Slugs last match against Humboldt State was a true scrap where they had very little possession but managed to win 20-0 for a hard fought win. Today should be a better match on a much better pitch (the last match was in a muddy park). Go slugs!!! I'm actually attending this one.

UC Berkeley plays Stanford today at Stueber Stadium and this should be the match of the ages. Classic rivals, and a weakened Stanford presents a tempting prey for the Cal Bears and hopefully it'll manifest in a long awaited victory.

Coach Owens of UC Berkeley is also hosting a summer camp for U19/High School players this summer in Berkeley more details to follow.

Alright lets get this party started...I have to gimp around and help set up my favorite pitch in the world. Let's dominate this game slugs!!!

USA Roster vs Canada

2010-01-11T21:01:00.001-08:00

USA Lineup vs Canada
Atlantic Cup – January 12, 2010

1. Farrah Douglas (Keystone)
2. Mari Wallace (Beantown)
3. Naima Reddick (Berkeley All-Blues)
4. Jillion Potter (Minnesota Valkyries)
5. Sharon Blaney (Beantown)
6. Melanie Denham (Beantown)
7. Phaidra Knight (New York)
8. Kate Daley (Keystone)
9. Kim Magrini (Keystone)
10. Hannah Stolba (Minnesota Valkyries)
11. Nathalie Marchino (Berkeley All-Blues)
12. Melissa Kanuk (Minnesota Valkyries)
13. Emilie Bydwell (Beantown)
14. Ashley Kmiecik (ORSU)
15. Christy Ringgenberg (Minnesota Valkyries)

RESERVES
16. Jamie Burke (Beantown)
17. Kitt Wagner (Beantown)
18. Blair Groefsema (Berkeley All-Blues)
19. Kristin Zanczewicz (Minnesota Valkyries)
20. Claudia Braymer (Albany)
21. Stephanie Bruce (Berkeley All-Blues)
22. Ashley English (Berkeley All-Blues)

STAFF
Kathy Flores, Head Coach
Candy Orsini, Assistant Coach
Alex Williams, Forwards Technical Coach
Krista McFarren, Backs Technical Coach
Michelle Carrone, Fitness
Lisa Bartoli, Medical
Krissy Temporiti, Trainer
Ginger Stringer, Manager

Back (with a LOT of shit to cover)

2010-01-10T22:30:00.000-08:00

Alright so here's the skinny on the last couple of months. The All Blues beat everyone in league with each game getting tougher then the next. By the end of the year everyone was pretty much playing injured, the All Blues lack depth so it's not surprising that a longer harder season took it's toll. Nationals were really neat (despite the horrid weather, disappointing results, and my social anxiety over snoring and sharing a room with (relatively speaking) strangers). I guess I stopped blogging because there was a limit to how much I could deal with my existential crisis in the public medium of blogging. It's been a pretty tough year...it took me a while to realize that pretty much everyone is a bit scared, threatened, whatever right now and everyone is more then a wee bit prickly and not to take things too personally. I needed to cool my jets a bit and get ok with my current lot in life. I think I've figured out a few general long term goals so that's helpful too. Here's to 2010...shit people let's get excited! It's a frickin world cup year!

Alright so Berkeley U19 aka the Vigorous Gold Stars have started practicing. We have a full lineup of games as we're actually going to be competing in league this year. There's a two new squads that may or may not be forming up so as always the schedule is subject to change:

Saturday, February 6: Nor Cal girls' round robin tournament
Sunday, February 21: BHS at Alameda
Saturday, February 27: BYE (or maybe Humboldt; they don't currently have a team)
Saturday, March 6: home game vs. Sacramento
Saturday, March 20: home game vs. Davis
Saturday, April 10: home game vs. MotherLode

The All Blues will be starting up after a nice break for spring (aka developmental) season, our first meeting is on Jan 19th (comment if you need details but I doubt anyone reads this blog) but practice dates will be decided later but our schedule so far looks like this:

Sat Feb 27: SF Fog at Home
Sat March 6-7: Champagne Classic in San Diego
Sat March 13: Triple Threat in Chico
Sat March 20: Sacramento Amazons at Home
Sun March 28: San Diego Surfers at Home

UC Santa Cruz has a scrappy young squad with a long regular season ahead of it. They hosted a solid tournament (slugfest) with SLOboldt (SLO + Humboldt), Sac State, UC Davis. They won(?) the social bracket down at scrum by the sea. They narrowly lost a friendly against Stanford's mixed Crawford side. Just this weekend they had their annual clinic and friendly against cal playing mixed squad, rolling subs, for 3 rounds and won roughly 25-10(I wasn't keeping track of conversions sorry). So here's their schedule going forward (subject to change...duh):

1/9: UCSC @ Cal (clinic/DI friendly)
1/16: UCSC @ Santa Clara (league)
1/23: UCSC @ Sac State (DI friendly)
1/30: UCSC @ USF (league)
2/6: UCSC @ Humboldt (league)
(2/13: USA sevens in Las Vegas -- not an official team
event)
2/20: Santa Clara @ UCSC (league)
2/27: Humboldt @ UCSC (league)
3/6: USF @ UCSC (league)
(3/20: PCRFU (Pacific Coast) play-in, host: Nor Cal RFU)
(4/3: PCRFU playoffs, host: Utah RFU)

If you're wondering/keeping track...yea we lost St. Mary's this year...no clue what happened, something about numbers clearly (d1 lost chico due to suspension for social reasons). I'll ask St. Mary's coach next time I see him (he's been assistant reffing lately). So yea DII NorCal teams need a lot of help, if you're near a college please start up a team or think up ways to donate money time or whatev. It's really sad that our league has deteriorated from...I mean my frosh year we had CSU Monterey Bay, San Jose State, St. Mary's Santa Clara, Sac State, and us. C'mon DII!

In international news USA is playing Canada in the 'atlantic cup' or whatever down in Florida. A bunch of teammates are down there and good luck to them, kick some ass, specifically Canada's 8-man.

What else....argh too much to get to. Oh well I'll leave you with some sick ass vids that have been posted in my absence (I don't know if anyone has posted them but I'm still working my way through the YSC archives so meh)

An English promo vid (gotta love what the world cup does to the promotion of the sport)

Old school world cup footage showing why Crawford is the shiznit

some footage from the black ferns vs england game

Check out Las Banditos (they're in the prison stripes kicking ass)
\

Ignore the super cheesy 80s music for a minute..this is contains some awesome freaking show of the flair of the NZ women's running game. Auckland is basically the # domestic team down there

Playing the Valks this weekend

2009-09-29T23:14:00.000-07:00

Skipped practice cause my ankle has been bugging me. Well I went to practice but missed out on a ton of great tackling drills. Missed the ORSU game 'cause I'm not traveling this year. Been slammed at work but at least it's work. Enjoying my new place a lot and I guess that's it for now.

"Hit Like a Bear" Women's Collegiate Rugby Clinic

Come be a part of an all-day clinic put on by the local women's club team, 12-time National Champion Berkeley All-Blues! Members of the All-Blues will coach you through general skills (passing, kicking, tackling), positional skills and sub-unit skills (scrums, lineouts, backs play, etc.) in the morning and in the afternoon you will play in live scrimmages. Clinic participants will be divided up according to experience and skill level, in order to make sure that those new to the game are instructed in the basics and those with some experience learn some more advanced skills. The day will wrap up with a discussion session during which players can ask their All-Blue coaches for specific feedback. We look forward to seeing you there!

Date: Saturday, October 10, 2009

Time: 9:00am – 4pm; Check-in @ 8:30am

Location:

Pinole Valley High School
2900 Pinole Valley Road
Pinole, CA 94564

The Field: From the parking lot in front of the school - the baseball/softball fields are to the right of the turf football field. People will park in the lot in front of the school and walk across the football field to the clinic fields.

Cost: $25 early registration gets you: a full day of instruction, and a t-shirt! Same day registration available for $30. PLEASE BRING YOUR OWN LUNCH! Water and snacks will be provided.

Open to: All women collegiate rugby players, regardless of experience

Early registration deadline: October 8, 2009

For more information and to sign up, email Julie Kieu jdkieu - at - gmail d-o-t com or please visit http://www.berkeleyallblues.com/

Berkeley All Blues vs Twin City Amazons

2009-09-13T17:06:00.000-07:00

100-7. Yep. I didn't play but man am I beat between setting up stuff,running water, and cleaning up. It's tough to be a rookie! Although a lot easier and less stressful then being a vet...it's just a little harder the second time around. I bought another pair of shorts/jerseys 'to help support the wnt(actually just because I live in shorts and we scrum enough in practice that jerseys are useful)'. Uhh what else, I saw the gnarliest clash of heads that I've ever ever ever seen. Like...ever. Damn and I saw the photo after it was cleaned up and it's like 3/4 of her forehead! Holy crap! Uh, first half was pretty square, lot's of turnovers lots of territory gained and lost. The All Blues started ticking over some tries, the Zons threatened through the centers scoring their 7 points and almost struck again with a dangerous intercept that was chased down by Stephanie Bruce. Eventually the All Blues started clicking and the floodgates just opened with try after well supported try. That's about it, it's really hard to watch a match when it's broken up so much with scoring. I'm really looking forward to watching the game tape on this one. Some of our Santa Cruz kids came up (albeit late) which is awesome and exactly what we need, there were (gee whiz I'm horrible at estimating) maybe a hundred or so supporters who came out for the match. Fun times now I'm going to pass out =]

----
btw it's raining and man do my bones ache. I swear I'm only 23.

Getting pumped

2009-09-11T22:21:00.001-07:00

First off they killed my favorite radio station (Energy 92.7) and replaced it with a hip hop station...wtf!?!?! You take the best dance music station in the nation and replace it with a generic hip hop station?? You have to be shitting me. So shed a tear with me. So I've been re-watching last year's collegiate national championship (there is seriously something about watching a college final helps ones rugby soul) and it's an awesome match so far, I can't believe I missed it but knowing me I was probably writing a thirty page paper on nuclear weapons (*barf*). It's pretty funny 'cause you can see a bunch of whose who in the crowd whenever the cameras pan the stands. Also I just wanted to share this pic of total band geekhood. I know there aren't a lot of rugby nerds but I hope someone appreciates this pic of the Stanford band and remember 'all glory to the hypnotoad!'

Oh and I really am pissed about energy, they just supported the Women's National 7s Invitational on treasure island and provided some badass beats both days. *sigh* I am so in mourning.

Making the Bench

2009-09-10T23:22:00.000-07:00

Holy crap! I'm stoked! Ok scared but stoked none the less. I am pretty nervous but I know it's a chance and I should have fun with it. Coach just doesn't want me to freeze up and she said I'll probably be propping but maybe hook or flank(really doubtful). Anyhoo I can't believe I get to wear the blue jersey =] now I just need to do my research. Gah so if you have a chance this Sunday, Treasure Island, Gaelic Athletic Fields, 10 am kick off. Be there!

Women's Premiership League Videos are up!

2009-09-09T17:37:00.001-07:00

Woot! Women's Premiership League Match VideosHow sick is this, one can actually watch high level women's rugby matches without boarding a plane every weekend. Please enjoy and watch all the matches! This weekend we have our first home match against the Twin City Amazons so show up and watch some kick ass rugby. 10am Sunday on the Gaelic fields (check out the berkeley all blues website for directions (I embedded a map weee)

Week 1: New York at Beantown (1st Half) from Women's Premier League - USA Rug on Vimeo.

Just to start you off here is the first half of the Beantown vs New York match.

Also I know this video has been around for ages I just forgot about it until now.

That's the sickest maul I've ever seen in my five years of watching pro, club, collegiate and hs rugby.

Oh on another note I'm starting to feel a bit more comfortable at practice. I'm still having a minor positional crisis (ie I'm just not tough enough to play at this level, much less in the front row). But having a lot more fun. I'm feeling alright in the loose but I'm really rusty linking up with others. I'm doing alright in rucks/counter rucks and carrying the ball. My lineout throws were fairly good and I'm happy to say I was hitting 'em both near and far. I did some ball handling practice today on my break at work...which means I'm probably hooked on rugby again. Practice tomorrow, coolbeans.

Patience...that thing that I have a lot of apparently.

2009-09-01T23:40:00.000-07:00

So I haven't exactly been blogging lately, mostly 'cause I was seriously dangling onto the last frickin microscopic thread of love for this sport. Looking back at past posts I think it's pretty obvious that I've been doing some major level flip flopping this is mostly due to yea, some major level self examinations at what the hell I'm doing with my life and why I'm stalling it to play a sport that for a whopping nine months I couldn't even play. Not nine months in Vanawatu or wherever sipping on coconuts and enjoying sunsets but rather 9 months of showing up to practice, kitting up and sitting out for all the fun bits. 9 months of scrapping around for a job in a some new city, 9 long ass months of worry (and 9 months of bitching about it!)

Haha! But as of today I have health insurance and I had some fucking fun at practice. Played like crap but hey moving to the ABs represents a huge step up in playing levels so it's kinda to be expected. Some scrum practice (where I actually managed to not get blasted completely out of the scrum), agility and handling, defensive and mostly just prepping the traveling squad for their first premiership game in Minnesota. I'm missing due to budgetary constraints but I had a damn fun time disrupting possession on defense. Got a few thumping tackles in but mostly got dusted, I really need to work on the concept of connecting and defensive structure. The stuff is going directly over my head as UCSC generally lacks any defensive organization beyond lead and scrape. *sigh* maybe I'll attend some Cal practices. Ooo and I got a tech tee. Fancy.

Um lot's more to come. Grizzlies got third at NASC 7s in New York. Not bad at all hopefully with the new national invitational NorCal will finally develop a 7s scene beyond just Palo Alto 7s.

National Women's 7s Invitational

2009-08-15T19:06:00.000-07:00

kicks ass! Fog has put on an amazing show and it's been a seriously fun day. I was thoroughly entertained despite not um ykno...playing. So far Nova 1 and Berkeley have won their brackets.More great stuff tomorrow. I <3 the SF Fog for making this great event happen =]

Lets bring it all back.

2009-08-12T20:35:00.001-07:00

I'm homesick for a homeland that is half make believe, part memory, part history, part dream. We had our second All Blues XVs practice yesterday with guest coach Jen Crawford. It was nifty but further illustrated the gap between old and new. Styles, philosophies, whatever you want to call it I don't want to adopt the nervousness that pervades. I wanna just be loose and play, enjoy the touch of the ball and linking up, running lines and run into someone. I don't give a crap about selections I want to listen and learn the fundamentals that I missed but I need to step out of the blinders of mindlessly trying to replicate each minutia of instructions and keep rugby in the larger picture. As cool as this new situation is I need to keep the reasons why "I" love rugby warm to my heart and ignore what frankly just doesn't apply.

I like this video (although the score at the very end is weird and slightly horror-esque)

National Club 7s is this weekend at Treasure Island.

Start Time:
Saturday, August 15, 2009 at 8:00am
End Time:
Sunday, August 16, 2009 at 6:00pm

I'll probably only go to Saturday. It's not too long till the first premiership match in Minnesota. I've pretty much decided that I'm going to save moolah and skip the away trips.

as the days go by and I still think of you

2009-08-09T22:27:00.000-07:00

Oh rugby. First practice went well, I was quickly reminded of the physicality of XVs over 7s practice. 7s practice was fun and we combined with fog for a day when our fields had further issues (I swear I've practiced on more fields with the All Blues during their off season then I've played on in the five years of rugby I've played prior (and we played on a LOT of different pitches). One thing I must say is that as nice as the Bay Area is I @(*#(@*&# hate geese! Seriously that's some nasty green shit that very quickly ends up on your face. And to make matters worse d'ya know where they're from? CANADA. Pff anyhoo our Eagles are up playing in the Nations Cup woo hoo. As long as we beat Canada (and South Africa). Anyhoo here's a cool vid from the southern hemisphere.

Don't take this the wrong way...

2009-07-27T18:42:00.000-07:00

But screw the haka it's all about the Welsh National Anthem.

This is rugby pageantry to me.

I need to go to Wales and experience this shit. I mean really how cool is that? The first test match I ever watched was back in '04 when Wales played NZ in the a fall international. I watched it and a)fell in love with the sport b) fell in love with my buddies Jones, Williams, and Thomas. It's funny I really could have gone either way. Sure I could have sided with the all blacks or one of the other rugby giants (not that Wales is too shabby in its own right) but really I'm glad to back my team, through some particularly gnarly 6 nations campaigns to grand slam victories and lions honors. Is there a point to this post? I'm looking for some warm fuzzy rugby memories to keep me going.

I SHOULD be hired on permanent this week. It SHOULD be about another month before I get a healthcare package. I SHOULD be a lot happier in 30-40 days. Time to reset the clock. I apologize for being not showing up to palo alto this summer. It's been 7 almost 8 months now and I really can't stand just watching rugby. It makes me grumpy and depressed (I've missed starting for the ABs in a dev game against the Amazons, missed playing in my first Champagne Classic, missed traveling/participating in the Glendale game, missed playing prom dress rugby for the first time, missed trying out for the u23 grizzlies (my last chance), missed playing in a fun round robin with the slug kids (stiff arms galore), missed a scrimmage that ended up being contact drills/warmup against Stanford, missed playing against the kids and playing with my best friends in my first alumni game, missed midnight 7s, missed palo alto 7s, and most importantly missed the point in a number of practices/drills due to worrying about injuries/not wanting to go 100%).

Fuck.

Playing Scared

2009-07-21T22:02:00.000-07:00

I'm kind of at a crossroad right now so I haven't really been in the mood for posting. To be honest I'm still kind of in a funk and I haven't decided how I'm going to deal with it. This is all on the rugby side of things. Works been going and a bunch of buddies have been trickling up to the bay so things have been pretty good at that end. I'm just reallyreallyreallyreally waiting on insurance. My hips been bugging me more and more as well. It's kind of getting into my head at practice and doubt and fear has kind of overshadowed the fun of the game. I'm seriously tired of playing scared. I just want to have some damn fun. One more week and I should have a better attitude.

Off to my first test match experience

2009-06-25T21:17:00.000-07:00

in t-minus uh 9 hours (I'm not counting men's matches =p). I don't know what to wear! I don't know what to bring. I don't know anything! Lol I really wish I at least knew the roster or something. feh. I just read goff's article on city based women's 7s and visited the site City Based 7s and I was tempted to design a header for them...and then I realized why should I help out the east coast. I'm kidding, I'm sure they have someone working on it already and lord knows I should fix my own header first. Ugh and so much to do on Berkeley's site..oh well. Surprisingly enough I'm not main lined to the internet so I'll be unable to update 'till I get home (one of the down sides to making a couple bucks over min wage). I'm sure my report will be far less technically sound then others involved but hey what's another perspective. Oh btw where the hell are the pictures from the 7s world cup? Seriously I feel like we've been waiting forever on those, at least Jen D. made her stuff available during the last XVs world cup.

Alright, off to buy snacks and burn cds. Oh and drive to Glendale.

One day till the road trip!

2009-06-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

Man am I stoked! The weather calls for isolated thunderstorms so hopefully the match actually...yknow...occurs. Here's some vids for thought, I'm really excited to see the sort of game that USA brings.

Here's the highlights from the USA A game vs Can A 7-10

Here's some talk with the coaches.

My ticket is already in my wallet, I need to do my laundry and pack some snacks and I'm ready to go =] uh minus the fact that I don't own any waterproof clothing. I may go the wear shorts and flip flops route.

Making Weight

2009-06-19T23:08:00.000-07:00

Well I finally broke my fitness goal of the last...uh...two years at least. I'm officially 199lbs (! Holy crap! I'm really shocked because I'm currently exercising once a week. Yea I know, that's not exactly clear and away from 200lbs but still, the scale hasn't said that in a good long while (and yea I triple checked 'cause I didn't believe it myself!). I guess I'd better set a new one of 185 by the end of summer but yea not to shabby considering I'm not exactly working out or eating terrifically healthy (but better proportions).

I'm leaving on Friday for my four day road trip to watch the WNT play Canada which is pretty fucking exciting. I'm not prepared at all...I need to do my homework to fully enjoy the experience. The USA A side is going to play on Tuesday.

I can't wait till Tuesday and 7s practice. We did the WNT speed workout and played touch for and hour last practice 'cause coach was out of town. I was really disappointed in how quickly I was gassed and effectively out of the game due to my shitty cardio. I was able to make some good breaks but yea at this level I'm toast unless I improve...everything! My legs were trashed for the next two days from hitting things at full pace and I definitely ripped myself some new quad muscle. My buddy Georgi wasn't even sore from practice *sigh*. I have started working out this week with one of my rookies from UCSC which should be fun, we did some interval running (woo 13 min mile...yea people can walk faster then I run), core work, and some speed stuff. Hopefully I'll be able to join her gym and hit the weights before my upper body absolutely disappears. But I really should get back on topic...

Rugby...uh U-23 Pac Coast didn't do so hot, losing both matches and dropping to Tier 2. Internationally can I say THE MAUL IS BACK!!! HALLELUJAH! Did anyone see that maul in the first Lions Test, the boks bloody drove them back 20-30 meters. Sexy, gorgeous, and oh so beautiful. I love a good maul. Vickery was horrible, Both Williams should have been on the pitch, O'Connell was pretty damn useless as well. I swear I have no Welsh bias AT ALL. I was disappointed in Jones' kicking but meh Monye fucked up two tries that's a min of 4-8 points that could have meant a 'w' for the lions. SA needs to fix their midfield defense 'cause it's currently sucking. I love the welsh but Roberts isn't THAT good and just take him out and BOD will be out of the equation.

What else...oh I've wanted to put this up for a while now. Mostly 'cause this picture cracks me up. I shoulda gotten the girl to rig up the text though 'cause I suck at image editing. But enjoy. Ashley you rock!

"This isn't the ball that you are looking for, move along"

She's so good even Ruth is confused.

Watch out for Sweden

2009-06-10T22:33:00.000-07:00

The editing was above average so I decided to post it. That and I was mildly terrified at the idea of not only one but two teams of giant Nordic blondes playing rugby.

This is a shout out for Laura Cabrera

2009-06-10T08:06:00.000-07:00

Bomb ass 7s coach that she is. I felt compelled to write this post because I had a blast last night (and pretty much every night that I've had practice..sans the one where I had a taco truck burrito half an hour prior and felt like dying). I don't think I've ever had that much fun at practice a) she's hilarious so even when she's yelling at us I'm cracking up b) she's teaching me (a DII collegiate front row forward) how to run lines and break up the defense (and not in the typical forward fashion) c) I'm having this fun doing a non-contact passing/decision making practice. I dunno what I'm rambling about but credit has to be given 'cause I finally understand why rugby is fun for backs (a mystery I could never solve prior to this). Even the conditioning portions are light and fun. I know I'll never be some amazing 7s player but I've gotten better at this whole engaging the defense thing and I'm getting way better at doing the right thing like making the run myself or passing once I'm getting pulled. It's crazy how fast you have to be thinking I can't believe how fast backs must make decisions at this point I have a split second between recognizing the situation in front of me and reacting to it. I just need to practice my passing during the week more 'cause they aren't as crisp as they were in college (where I was in practice/training rookies 24/7). At least for the most part I get it, or my body is getting it and my brain is kinda being towed along for the ride (which credit should be given for really well designed drills that are etching this stuff into muscle memory. All right I guess that's enough, I think she's an awesome coach and this has been a shout out for Laura Cabrera 'cause I felt like it and this is my blog.

OH and I can't believe it I'm so excited for Can Am! *Does cartwheels* and I have a part in my first rugby skit (damn D1 traditions). The U23 Grizzlies are off to Pittsburgh, Penn so hopefully one of my kids will keep me up to date. 7's is just around the corner but I think I'll be missing the first one 'cause I'll be in Glendale and the 2nd one we won't have any of our top players cause that's Grizzly 7s tryouts lol I should try out for All Star 7s so I get through my bitter non-selection experience (jeez there are so many players who have horrible experiences with select sides). I just want to play rugby. I just want to play rugby. I just want to play rugby. Alright off to work.

The Berkeley Hills Death Ride

2009-06-07T23:54:00.000-07:00

So I haven't been riding my bike to work (mostly because let's just say I saw less shootings in Compton then I have so far in Richmond) and with practices reduced to once a week I'm starting to feel on the verge of losing whatever gains I had made post-hip breakage. So I decided to go on a bike ride today...after a MONTH of not biking I made the highly intelligent decision to attempt The Berkeley Hills Death Ride. Mostly because it sounded fun and I figured I could take it slow and it wouldn't be that big of a deal. Sufficed to say I now have indisputable proof of post-college brain atrophying. Death Ride = fun and feasible? Ok in my defense I knew going into it that I was only going to attempt the first (and worst) climb of the Death Ride. So I bike over to Berkeley in no time flat and I'm feeling great, I hike up a little curving climb to the base of Marin and holy shit it's just....up.

Look Ma...a deer

It was so steep my camera phone got vertigo

Yea pictures can't really convey what a 30% grade feels like

Finally at the crest!

And the view isn't even that great.

So yea I rested every block (and on the 30% grade hill I rested every 15 feet or so) and it still was ridiculous. I love my Schwinn hybrid but c'mon it's a hybrid with mountain tires on a 1.5k climb with an average grade of 22% (and that's including the flat intersections!). I was on my lowest gear and I was popping wheelies when I tried to crank it, when I would brake I would start skidding downhill. It was a terrifying and ridiculously fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Alright...now back to rugby. I've been tinkering around on the All Blues site, making some touch ups here and there but I really need to relearn css 'cause it's been a while and I suck at it. Also as you might have noted I cleaned up this dumpy blog just a bit and 'fixed' the header as well. I'm going to partake in my first rugby skit this coming Saturday and I'm pretty nervous about that.

We got our schedule and the Blues are having their annual collegiate clinic on Oct 10-11. I'll post the deets as they come out but yea.

In international rugby I've been catching up on the Lions matches and I have to say that for once I'm happy BOD's side is doing better the big ugly munster man. He's a better Captain although Paul did get stuck with a squad with significantly less shape then the weekday team.

I'll end with this rugby league video because it's fucking funny and that's all you need to know.

Hell yes! Can Am Here I Come!

2009-06-05T19:36:00.000-07:00

Yup, I decided to do it. AND I got the time off work. I'll just be poor for a bit. I mean when am I not? Anyhoo I'm stoked!

Oh and here are some pics from the game...never thought I would see Peter Stringer live...wish I could have gone to the Wales game...fucking Dwayne Peel + Ryan Jones *drool*

Oh sorry...back to Ulste*cough* I mean Ireland A.

Buckshaw Stadium

"Huh wot?" Sorry Mike, you're a good guy but this pic isn't the most flattering

Poor Stringer...probably the only man from Munster NOT on the Irela*cough* Lions Squad (yes I used that joke twice in one post...)

Nice.

To Try or Not Try...that is the question...

2009-06-04T19:24:00.000-07:00

I don't really have rugby news this week because everyone knows Pac Coast won NASC and the Collegiate All Americans made it to tier a (the two most relevant pieces of news for my blog). What else...so I'm debating missing work (despite the fact I'm only a seasonal worker and won't be hired on permanently until late July) in order to make the Can-Am match. I'm struggling with it 'cause if I go it'll be a road trip (which would be hecka fun)but I dunno if it's worth it. I caught last weeks eagle match against Ireland A and I gotta say it was kinda dull. It was a sold out stadium but no excitement or animation in the crowd. The action was alright, I might be more impressed when I watch the replay, but in person *shrugs* it was kinda boring. I've seen a couple of men's test matches and I gotta say (excluding the Uruguay match where I spent the whole game heckling Clever) they weren't very entertaining. Long story short I'm kinda worried about the Can Am match not being worth the money and effort...I mean I know the game will probably be fairly exciting to watch (it's always more interesting when you actually know the players doing cool stuff) but I'm kinda worried about a 46 hour drive to watch 80 mins of rugby. I know I should go to support USA and it'll be a cool experience watching my first live women's international match...bleh and the debate continues. I mean on one hand a shitload of Eagles are there and that'd be cool to get a taste of the history (ok I'm lying, it'll be awesome from a whose-who perspective, plus I might meet YSC which would be cool). Downside...possibly losing my job in the worst economy ever. Ummmmmmmmmmmm.

Yea.

I hate it when the lines delineating practical vs fun have to be so bloody obvious. Knowing me I'll flip a coin.

U23 NASCs are just around the bend. Can the U23 Grizzlies stand up to the might of NRU or MARFU? Who knows because no one ever publishes their damn rosters. Well actually I have the U23 Grizzly roster as of a couple weeks ago...feel free to comment if I screwed up somewhere (the list was horribly formatted to begin with so I might have screwed up a few names and who knows if availability changed or whatever).

Zully, Camacho (Cal, All American), Tori Campbell, Delaney Chapman, Elaine Daggett, Siche Green-Mitchell, Jenn Greenspan (Oregon), Milika Hopoi, Liz Kilgore, Molly Kneen, Jackie Lewis, Kal McMahon (UC Santa Cruz), Angelina Pascual, Megan Sanders, Nikki Steele, Cameron Stewart (Davis alum), Claire Susz, Felix Tsang, Kara Winek, Shannon Woolley, Christina Zier

Alts: Alicia Gonzales, Chelsea Adams, Vanessa Avila-Esparza, Kelly Morris

I don't often get to combine politics (in the governmental sense) and rugby but....

2009-05-27T19:38:00.001-07:00

.....Wow.

Exhaustion

2009-05-26T22:14:00.000-07:00

So I went to LA and back by car in 24 hours. Got some free sushi from the fam, chilled in SC for a little bit and then made it back in time for work on Tuesday....where I proceeded to get slammed by my new work schedule. Ugh and I forgot the balls for practice. After stressing about it all day I finally got my housemate to drop 'em off for me and ate like shit because I ran out the door with a measly cup of rice with shredded spinach and a scrambled egg (which doesn't satiate a forward for 8 hours of manual labor hauling boxes plus 7s practice).

7s practice where my brain dead self acted the fool and managed to repeat everything that Laura told us NOT to do. For fuck sakes I never realized how bad I was at identified the flow of the attack (or perhaps I haven't played in nigh 6 months) because every single time I killed the overlap by getting sucked merrily away into the ruck. I couldn't pass for shit and I panicked every time there was a decision to be made. So I'm going to get some sleep and post some pictures of the Pac Coast Grizzlies vs Midwest later this week. I'm sure there is rugby news somewhere but I just don't feel like finding it.

Oh and thee Jane Mitchell also works at my work. Wow.

Too Hot to Live

2009-05-17T17:23:00.000-07:00

Grizzlies 17 vs MidWest 0. But it was too fucking hot. Screw ever playing for a select side (not that I could after seeing the caliber of players in person) but jesus shit christ why play XVs in spring/summer?!?!?! It was like 95-97 degrees out there with not a sniff of wind. This was the last warm up match for Pac Coast before NASCs in Little Rock, Arkansas where the Pac Coast will again play Midwest in the first round. It was really neat meeting/seeing so many all stars/eagle pool players in person. The weather was too stifling and brain frying to see a decent match. It was open subs and there were frequent water breaks but knock-ons and gate penalties seemed to rule the day. There weren't a whole lot of long breaks and scrums seemed highly contested but pretty fifty fifty. According to the Grizzly coach things they were playing a little antsy at first (I missed the first twenty) until they calmed it down and started taking more control over the pace of the match. Nathalie Marchino tried a number of daring and skillful attacks but was always contained by Christy Ringgenberg and shepherded into touch. Marchino never was really given the space to make a clean break (but she did a badass grubber then slide recovery to pop it to Blair hitting it at pace). Biscuit made a real impact off the bench, roughing up the scrums (making an appearance at hook) and being a pest in rucks. Beckett Royce made a sick catch under pressure and Captained the Grizzlies along with Ashley English. One Grizzly was yellow carded in the second half (probably for a late tackle) but they still kept the Thunderbirds scoreless. There was a fairly sizable audience of maybe 100 which was pretty good considering the damn heat. I know Tina Nesburg scored a try but I don't remember who else did. Steph Bruce's kicks looked nice and she only missed one kick that I saw. Oh and funny happenstance...one of the Pac Coast props looked familiar...like really familiar...like the captain of Plymouth State and loosehead prop the year we played them for the D2 Collegiate Championships back in 2006. Well funny thing, that just happens to really be Adrianne Acosta who now plays for ORSU and keeps it rock steady for the Pac Coast Pack. Always awesome to see DII ruggers man =]

Alright. And guess what...next weekend I DON'T HAVE ANY RUGBY EVENTS TO GO TO. HOLY SHIT! Free time! WTF will I do with it?! Lol in actuality I'll probably ask Coach Owens to teach me coding. =]

Oh and downside I don't think it's terribly realistic for me to go to away games in fall. Unless like I win the lotto or something. Alright, it's hot as hell, over and out.

***EDIT***

Why the hell didn't they hand out trophies like these back when we won nationals???

Rugby as far as the eye can see.....

2009-05-13T21:12:00.000-07:00

no...no really. I know I've said this before but my life before was life + occasional sides of fairly exciting rugby. Since moving to the bay (and graduating) it's become little stepping stones of work surrounded by an ocean of incredible rugby events and opportunities. Er I guess that doesn't make any sense. I mean...it's kinda at the point where I'm looking at Pac Coast Grizzlies vs Midwest Thunderbirds and thinking...meh maybe I'll miss it because I've spent every single weekend in the last five months at a rugby event. I haven't been blogging a lot 'cause every other minute something seems to be going on...er that and working my tail off.

So where to even start? I think I'll just fill in a bit and then screw whatever I missed so I can kill this nagging feeling that I'm always behind with my blog. Guess I'll have to take Blondie's advice from way back and just keep it simple stupid. I'll try and blog once a week consistently and build up again from there.

Last weekend was the invite only grizzly tryout up north (uh in Oregon I assume) only one of our kids made the trip (despite four invites) and she made the squad! So 'grats to Kal McMahon

Kal McMahon and our inside center Mashawna Miller scissoring against UC Berkeley

So u-23 Grizzlies will be off to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania June 10-14 to play in the u-23 equivalent to ITTs(uh Jen's explanation, not mine). Pac Coast will be playing Midwest first then MARFU. Good luck to them *obviously* and I'll hopefully be able to post a roster for them soon.

What else....I've been enjoying our super small Thursday practices with Coach Williams...they've now shifted from skill only to a core/skill work split. I'm really focusing on my communication (and everything else) but I'm actually making some improvements by reducing my chat to where/when (ie the only relevant info). Um I've been working on the blues website adding more profiles so you should check'em out =]. I kind of have an open call out helping if any women's teams want some tech help I'm no specialist but I can definitely help get your basic info out there/essential web updates and scheduling stuff to the more superficial but equally important profiles and embedded media. I really want to get my coding up to snuff so I can start tackling the LAU and TAU websites. For chrisssake some of them don't even acknowledge women's rugby...like...seriously....wtf? And as previously stated don't even get me started on usarugby. It would definitely be cool to update the profiles for the women eagles pool.

I'm still waiting and hoping on the video coding training for the women's national team and doing research to find a setup that would work (stupid me not owning a stupid mac).

Yesterday was the first 7s practice with the All Blues and it was SUPER DUPER cool. Ok yea I know I describe a lot of All Blues stuff that way but this was really chill. Did I mention Laura Cabrera is coaching? I have a hyper-extended arm because....(oh shit I haven't even talked about alumni weekend!) well one of my drunken alumni jumped on me at the bars before the alumni match and apparently I dropped her. Long story short I woke up the next day with some nagging-sharp arm pain which luckily hasn't given me too much trouble at work...where I only lift heavy boxes for 8 1/2 hours a day =p Oh so 7s. I'm learning about running LINES. WTF it's mind blowing...you run lines to confuse and draw and manipulate the defense. Imagine that! My head was scrambled after the third pattern we learned but hey that might be because Chou and I collided at full speed (I forgot that she was scissoring when I was looping and decided to support two). There was speed practice before hand and unfortunately I felt like shit due to my lack of sleep and the crappy burrito I ate for lunch. I only finished half of the speed workout which sucked because I know I'm better then that. New rule: Eating shitty (fast food) makes you feel like crap. Food that's good for you tastes better and makes you feel better when you're doing something that you like (like rugby). So why the hell should I eat crap food? So the new rule is I'm enjoying rugby and I want to feel good while doing it so I might as well eat healthy. =p Back to 7s...it was really interesting how defense has more options...like if someone is coming into you turning their back you can give 'em a shove and slide on or look for the intercept. If it was XVs that'd be the time to stick a shoulder into their lower back but 7s makes it so much more complex. Now obviously I have no ambitions to be a great 7s player but if I can keep a hold of half of what I'm learning these lines are fabulous. It's like adding a layer to the cake and it just keeps getting better and better. Oh and despite feeling crappy I made it through practice which felt pretty good (although I started getting a calf cramp when we were doing conditioning sprints at the ends...which made me feel like a douche).

Speaking of douchebaggery....alumni! UCSC alumni weekend is always a blast and we actually got to play on the lower field (by we I mean the old farts (gee whiz maybe I shouldn't call them that now that I'm one of 'em) and the kids). It was a full length field and probably a full length match as well. The kids won by a single try but both teams got 3-4 in the match. I lost track of the score when I had to get my old flanker off the field when her knee went sideways...did I mention she has no insurance...did I mention that it's shit like this that has kept me off the pitch for almost SIX MONTHS now? Anyhoo luckily there's some amazing health care in Alameda county she got to see a doc and get some x-rays for a measly 35 bucks. No conclusions yet but she has a brace and a referral to see an ortho for 10 dollars! Why the hell didn't I go to Alameda when I was hurt...the exact same thing cost me 400 bucks =p (2 hip x-rays and a visit to an ortho without insurance). What else...Tank from Davis was there (the recently retitled Double Deckers and the Davis HS coach), Tina W. the Fortuna coach (and fellow DD member), Lucy from Fog, and a bunch of kids playing for the sequoias (who will hopefully get their act together in time for palo alto 7s), oh and apparently one of our alum is playing for aptos? We had a bunch of no-shows but we still were able to field a full XV vs XV with subs even. Pretty damn impressive for an alumni match eh?

Did I mention Tina was in shape and raging in the match?

Oh and our alumni jerseys are hilarious...of course Michelle Sit would get the 69 jersey and our crazy ass fullback and rostered U19 USA 7s player Natalie Jacuzzi was wearing the mad hatter 2/3

The game itself was way more physical and serious then expected. Some tempers flared which wasn't helped by the casual refereeing via the men's coach Scott Carson. The young kids were a little hot under the collar and the old crew had some mean skills on the pitch. I was definitely impressed by the crispness of the old slug backline despite the fact that I know for a fact that their fly half hasn't run in at least a year! Christie Ravera is an absolute beast and it would be the largest shame in the world if the sequoias don't use her talent (as would most of the team). It's good to see that Val (my old vet hooker) is playing for Santa Monica who apparently did quite well last season. The kid pack did slightly better in the ruck situation but were beat out at scrum time.

Events in the near future:
This Sunday at 11am @ Stanford the Senior Women's Grizzly side is going to play the Midwest.

uh Sunday May 31st there's USA vs Ireland I'm looking forward to seeing Rory Best, Denis Leamy, Mick O'Driscoll Eoin Reddan and Peter Stringer in person.

I may be road tripping to watch the usa vs canada match June 27th. USA A plays Canada A on the June 23rd as well. Oh did you know that canada's players get paid..not all of em duh but they do get a stipend.

Rugby Canada is pleased to announce the senior women's team players that have been named to the 2009-2010 carding cycle.

Canada’s top twenty-two women will receive funding on behalf of Sport Canada’s Athlete Assistance Program ranging from $900 to $1500 per month.

The group represents a good cross-section of athletes from across the country who excel in various positions on the field:

*Marie Eve Brindamour Carrigan (Que-NWL/Montreal, PQ) (Lock)
Paige Burdett (Calgary Irish/Calgary, AB) (Lock)
Leslie Cripps (London Saracens/England) - (Prop)
Kim Donaldson (BC-NWL/Vancouver, BC) (Hooker)
*Marlene Donaldson (BC/NWL/Vancouver, BC) (Prop)
Gillian Florence (Ste. Anne de Bellvue - Que-NWL/Hudson, PQ) (Flanker)
Maria Gallo (Burnaby Lake-BC-NWL/Vancouver, BC) (Wing)
Megan Gibbs (ON-NWL/Barrie, ON) (Lock)
Brooke Hilditch (Yeomen/ON-NWL/Mississauga, ON) (Centre)
Heather Jacques (Capilanos/Vancouver, BC) (Flanker)
Jennifer Kish (Edmonton Rockers-AB-NWL/Edmonton, AB) (Flanker)
Mandy Marchak (Capilano-BC-NWL/North Vancouver, BC) (Centre)
Lesley McKenzie (BC-NWL/Vancouver,BC) (Hooker)
Barbara Mervin (Velox - BC-NWL/Victoria, BC) (Flanker)
Katie Murray (Lephrechaun Tigers-AB- NWL/Edmonton, AB) (#8)
Ashley Patzer AB/NWL(AB-NWL/Lethbridge, AB) (Fly-half)
Kelly Russell (Toronto Nomads- ON-NWL/Bolton, ON) (#8)
*Anna Schnell (BC-NWL/Vancouver, BC) (Fly-half)
Laura Stoughton (Calgary Irish/Calgary, AB) (Scrum-half)
Julia Sugawara (Burnaby Lake - BC-NWL/Langley, BC) (Scrum-half)
Sarah Ulmer (London Saracens/London, UK) (Centre)
*Julianne Zussman (Town of Mount Royal-Que - NWL/Montreal, PQ) (Fullback)

*Denotes first year carded athlete

The NSWT has an aggressive competition calendar from now until September 2010 to prepare for the next Women’s World Cup which takes place in London, England. The women are currently ranked 4th and are looking to finish in the top 2 of the World Cup next August. Some of the most notable events for the NSWT include:

- 2009 CanAm, June 20-28 ( Denver Colorado) featuring two tests vs. USA

- Senior Nations Cup, August 6-23 (Appleby College, Oakville Ontario) featuring England, France, USA, South Africa, and Canada

- Fall tour to France, mid-late November 2009 (TBA)

- Spring tour to New Zealand, May 2010

-http://www.rugbycanada.ca/leagues/homeRugbyCanada.cfm?leagueID=0&clientID=3817&link=RugbyCanada
taken from Canada RFU's site because for some reason direct links get re-directed.

Alright. That's enough. Seriously...I've been writing this for HOURS.

Congrats to the All Americans!

2009-05-05T19:12:00.000-07:00

And specific props to Zully Camacho from UCB and Raina Timmel from Sac State!

The list is obviously from erugbynews so the cite goes to them

Division I - First Team All-American
Position Player School
Prop Andria Payne Brown University
Prop Lauren Rusert Penn State University
Hooker Kristen Snyder Penn State University
Lock Lauren Daly University of Colorado
Lock Kayla Ellingson Brigham Young University
Flanker Kassie Drey University of Northern Iowa
Flanker Alison Worman Penn State University
Eight Kate Daley Penn State University
Scrum half Annie Zeigler Penn State University
Fly half Sadie Anderson Penn State University
Center Lauren Rosso Penn State University
Center Melissa Smit Stanford University
Wing Erica Cavanaugh University of Virginia
Wing Ono Nseyo Stanford University
Full back Jessica Sexauer United States Military Academy

Division I – Second Team All-American
Position Player School
Prop Susan Dekker Stanford University
Prop Tabitha Schaap Brigham Young University
Hooker Tess Kohanski University of Syracuse
Lock Marianne Sparklin United States Naval Academy
Lock Annalisa Wilde Brown University
Flanker Martha Camacho University of California, Berkeley
Flanker Adria Orr Brown University
Eight Jillion Potter University of New Mexico
Scrum half Elizabeth Trujillo United States Naval Academy
Fly half Deanna McGillivray University of New Mexico
Center Alexandria Hartley Brown University
Center Morgan Rovetti Brigham Young University
Wing Ploipailin Flynn Brown University
Wing Ashley Miller United States Military Academy
Full back Jessica Watkins Stanford University

Division I - Honorable mention
Position Player School
Scrum half Amber Glasrud University of New Mexico
Fly half Kirsten Siebach Brigham Young University
Center Danielle Cicuto United States Naval Academy

Division II – First Team All-American
Position Player School
Prop Lisa Hrunka Shippensburg University
Prop Nicole Muraglia La Salle University
Hooker Jennifer Ward Stonehill College
Lock Meghan McCloud Shippensburg University
Lock Kathryn McCormick University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Flanker Tiffany Gjestvang University of Minnesota, Duluth
Flanker Brittany Myers Shippensburg University
Eight Jen Larrimore East Carolina University
Scrum half Brittany Houston University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Fly half Laura Fischer Stonehill College
Center Jenna Boggi Shippensburg University
Center Jillianne Whitfield University of Michigan
Wing Kimberly Lane University of Delaware
Wing Raina Timmel California State University, Sacramento
Full back Natalie Monroig Shippensburg University

AGONY! Watch Cardiff vs Leicester!

2009-05-05T00:55:00.000-07:00

Good god was that cruel and wrenching and here I am staying up till one just to gnash my teeth at the very end. Watch it...there's more drama then a theater troupe in close quarters. All I have to say is for fuck's sake let Gethin Jenkins kick. Not technically a very great match but that's just how English teams play semi-finals. There was a round robin this weekend in Santa Cruz with Santa Clara and USF. Our rookies got to play their butts off with two back to back abbreviated games. Everyone whored for everyone and it was overall a good learning experience. More on this later...I'm just distracted by the semi-final.

Oh and wtf Stanford AND Cal lost?? Damnnnnnnn congrats to Ship and Penn.

Here's the posted schedule for Palo Alto 7s (which I grill into pretty much any rugger I meet...cause 7s is fun and I wish the NorCal women's 7s scene was a little bigger/better established)

June 27
July 11
July 25

No clue when but it's at Cubberly Field, Palo Alto. Uh...when I'm not lazy I'll look up a map and embed it. Ooo I think someone might be tinkering with the USA rugby site cause it's looking slightly different. Maybe someone will finally listen to me and @(*#&&(*@# get rid of those stupid frames on the site. Oh and you know...re-organize the link tree so it can make sense (it get's annoying having to write 10+ lines of instruction just to tell a rookie how to CIPP there self).

Yup. Sleep. 5 hours till I have to get up for work...weeee.

The Old "Hiding the Rugby Ball in My Jersey and Running Away With It" Trick

2009-04-29T17:23:00.000-07:00

Holland from Sac State doing something rather stealthy for an 8-man.

Sorry I've been busy working 11 hours a day this week...luckily I was able to quit my part time job (dear lord don't ask) and I'm now happily working full time at Title IX. I absolutely love the company! It's well managed, structured, and everyone is so freaking nice and friendly =]

It's been a long long time

2009-04-26T20:13:00.001-07:00

but here's what's up. I got a part time job doing office work/web design/gofer duty for a personal training gym. I just got a full time job doing accounts receivable/stock room stuff at Title IX. I fixed my car. Got a tailored suit for interviews. Had my mom visit. Turned 23. Been practicing with the Blues. Finally updated the Blues roster page. Learned how to publish my web design stuff (ftp servers etc). Skipped the U23 tryout camp because I'm a mere 2 months away from being fully cleared from my injury (which increases my chances of getting accepted for health insurance). Ummm and more...probably.

All 4 or 5 of our girls (unfortunately more couldn't make it) were invited to go to the real tryouts in Oregon. Which is cool news, the camp was pretty cool with lots of fun games.

Um our girls lost their first game weeks back against Washington State, I'll admit I wasn't very focused on the matches so I can't report back too much. Their backline was pretty fierce, fairly fast and very tough they were hardly stopped by our horrible tackling. We (UCSC) won the consolation match against Utah State which probably will help out next year with the seeds and such but it should be mentioned that Utah was playing multiple players down fairly early in the match. Both teams lacked depth, while Santa Cruz has a large squad an unprecedented level of serious injuries scythed down the squad. Sac State won their first match against Utah State in a tight game but weren't playing with the sharpness that they normally have. Against Washington State, Sac's players began to crumble and lacking subs their quality of play degraded further, costing them the match. Um I could report more about what happened in Elite 8s blah blah blah but I don't feel like it right now.

Here's a cool clip:

Um more rugby to come.

I want to stay in the bay!!!

2009-03-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

Spring season is over for both the ABs and the Berkeley U19 team so you can imagine things are a bit more boring for me. While we only have one AB practice a week it's been super enjoyable thus far. Lots of fun mini-drills...I've been working on my fitness since it's spring and all and managed to survive two Eagle workouts (hehe I made it through conditioning day 2! Um I mean it's not like I'm making the time requirements but I'm still happy that I'm getting out there and staying active. Hopefully I can continue to work out time to time with my more fit teammates. Ooo and I'm down to 210lbs which might or might not be good. I'm definitely slimmer but I have a bad feeling that I've in fact just lost a lot of muscle mass. I'm biking a lot as well and that's fun.

What else, pac coast playoffs this weekend...details can be found in a previous post I'm really too lazy to bother re-posting. I'll definitely attend the games unless I miraculously get a job.

Here's a video posted by someone from St. Mary's

St. Mary's in the red and blue, the white and green is USF, The Black and Gold and Green is Humboldt

About last weekend...

Berkeley U19 (aka the Vigorous Gold Stars) held up fairly well against a well coached and physical Motherlode side. While we were borrowing three players it was nice for our girls to experience playing a full XVs game. Our tackling wasn't quite as good as against Alameda but our offense and phase play showed a marked improvement. When we had the ball in hand the girls were breaking tackles and linking up with each other which was totally awesome. We were beaten by a lot but there was definitely an exciting moment in the 2nd half when the Berkeley managed to score a try. It was pretty freaking adorable as the kids celebrated like they won nationals. Motherlode had a damn good and, more importantly, very organized team. With around thirty players and numerous u19 select side talent there really was only one team that was going to win this match.

Other HS Girls Rugby News..:

CAL WOMEN'S RUGBY - GIRLS RUGBY CAMP 2009
Location: Berkeley, CA
Dates: June 22 - 25, 2009
Ages: 14-19
More Details

NorCal High School Girl's Rugby Playoffs are being held this Saturday at Luther Burbank High School, 3500 Florin Road in Sacramento.

The first game starts at 8:00 am between Mother Lode and Davis. There was a three way tie this year between Alameda, Davis, and Fortuna so the two closest teams are going to play in the first match.

Pelican (NorCal LAU Select Side) selectors will be present at the Championship. As a result, there will be an extra match for any players who would like extra time being seen by the selectors. All players will be eligible to play in this match as long as they have not exceeded the 90 minute maximum for the day.

(yea a lot of this info is straight from Tank)

Anyhoo that should be it for this week. I'll post as much as I can about Pac Coast Collegiate playoffs. If anyone spots me at the tournament they should give me a rugby shirt...or food (heh playing off of Wendy from YSC). Oh and I haven't paid a lot of attention to the D1 stuff but I do know that Chico is playing UC Berkeley...hmm...if Berkeley is firing on all cylinders they should take it.

Rugby is screwing up my sleep schedule...hardcore!

2009-03-21T14:14:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I woke up dark and early at 5 am to get my stuff together and bike down to a teammate's house and catch a ride to Treasure Island to set up the field at 7am for a 9am kickoff. The next day I had to get up at 7 to catch a bus to get to Alameda for the Berkeley u19 game against Alameda. Then I had to way up at 4 am on Friday to drive a teammate to the airport. Tonight I'm probably staying out late to pick up said teammates....

but who the shit cares!? Cause the kids won!!! Um let me clarify now that I'm affiliated/covering three teams. UC Santa Cruz won a seed in Pac Coast Playoffs, knocking out PNRFU 2 Western Washington in the challenge match that just ended. The game was close and ugly with UCSC playing a match right after their finals week which didn't afford for great attendance during practice nor the greatest level of focus. Their play was riddled with penalties but Santa Cruz still pulled it through with two tries scored by inside center Jen Neely and a conversion. This squeaked them just ahead of Western Washington who...uh..scored an unconverted try and two penalty kicks and scuffed a third in the dying minute which would have given them the match (also it could have been a converted try and a penalty kick and one missed pk...I got my info from a very exhausted forward just minutes after the final whistle..I'll call coach and get more of an official score). So it looks like the final was 12-11 or 12-10...either way UCSC has clawed it's way back into the national running.

The downside of course is that Washington State beat Western Washington 29-0 in the previous week and that's who UCSC will be facing at Pac Coast Playoffs Friday, April 3rd, at Stanford. The good news is it'll be practically a home match and a couple of our starters who were unable to make the last minute match up to Washington will be there and two weeks should be long enough for the team to heal up, rest up, and bring the A-game that they're capable of playing. Not only will it most likely be warmer weather, but there will be firmer turf, and a sizable crowd of fans to help bolster the side.

The Pac Coast Playoffs are scheduled for Friday and Saturday to accommodate for BYU who, along with Chico, won their respective challenge matches to make it into the D1 PCRFU playoffs. Chico State beating Oregon 19-7 and BYU beating Davis 20-0. Dunno what that matchup means because I just don't have time to really cover D1 women's collegiate rugby =p

All Blues beat the Glendale Raptors 37-10 with a good number of Berkeley's tries coming near the end of the match...more details when I actually get to talk to my teammates instead of regurgitating a goff article. The match was apparently broadcast live on www.rugbyzone.com but I missed the live streaming...stupid standard time crap. But it's still available to download if you're a member/pay whatever fee that I can't afford. There should be another b-side match tomorrow but I doubt it's being broadcast. This pretty much ends ABs spring season...*sigh* practices are going to be cut to one a week which is a bummer but it's not like I can practice anyhoo...I'm just a wee bit sad that it was so short.

Hopefully I can get insurance before the U-23 Grizzly Camp in April...

What else...um the Berkeley u19 lost to Alameda last Saturday 6-7 tries to 0. They played 13 a side with Alameda lending a player. The girls had a lot of fun and there were no major injuries, which is great news. Scrums were uncontested and play consisted mostly of Alameda keeping it tight and offloading out of contact. Our lineouts were looking alright, they kind of cheated by throwing the ball in crooked to their first lifter but the ref let it go. Berkeley was dominated in almost every aspect of the game but never gave up and kept tackling their hearts out. We tried to work on problem areas at practice but on the second day the rucks were looking worse then before...so hopefully they'll sharpen up their focus before Saturday. We worked with our scrumhalf on passing from the ground (she was taking a couple of slow steps with the ball and was getting stuffed by their flankers). We also worked on our forward support lines which really improved as well. Eh their next game is tomorrow at Treasure Island against Mother Lode (who beat Alameda) kickoff is at 2 and I'll be there for sure.

Now my pinkie hurts from typing so much about rugby...man I wish it was from playing!

An Unfortunate End to My Spring Season

2009-03-14T20:52:00.000-07:00

Nope I'm not even injured. It's worse, I'm 100% healthy (and probably fitter then I've been in years) but I can't get insurance. Yup, I'm a douchebag supreme and if I'd been on my shit from the start I'd have a job, some savings, and insurance by now. *sigh* instead I missed my dream debut, I was selected to start at hook against Sacramento today but I had to back out because I found out that I need to be injury free for 6 months before another carrier will pick me up. I thought my stuff was going to go through but it ends up it was rejected weeks ago and my fam forgot to tell me (err 'cause I'm *cough* NOT playing rugby right now). While I could have done the gutsy thing and gone for it I decided to make the extremely painful but correct decision. *sigh* so now I can't even PRACTICE with the Blues because of liability reasons. Fucking shit dude...if only I'd left college with a better plan of action...fuck! I'll still go to practice but I guess I'll just bring along a workout and kick my own ass. Live and learn, I've been a lot more productive on the job hunt lately and now it's official. I'm declaring war on unemployment and my own irresponsible immaturity! I will be victorious!!! Wow that was geeky. Now that that's over let's get to the real rugby news shall we?

There is seriously a ton of material to cover...when it comes to DII collegiate stuff I'm totally backlogged.

March 7 League Match Results
Cal 27 v Reno 5
UCD 97 v Humboldt 0 (waiting final score)
Sac St 19 v UCSC 7

STANDINGS:
D1
Stanford 20
Cal 20
Chico 15
UC Davis 10
Reno 5
Humboldt 0

D2
Sac St 14
Santa Cruz 10
Santa Clara 4
St. Mary's 1
USF 0

Yup UCSC finally lost to Sac State, it was a fairly close match (we had them matched for speed and power...but experience won the day) 7 - 19 but yea, sucks but there are interesting implications. UCSC has been dodging the bullet of moving up to D1 for a while and this year it's mandatory DII winner of league HAS to move up if the bottom D1 team doesn't challenge. Humboldt has been trying for ages to get down to DII...ipso fact next year Sac State a team of a wee bit over 19 with 5+ fifth years, and a sixth year player (all starters mind you) will find themselves in the D1 racket next year. If this had happened last year I feel the current team could fend pretty well in D1, I know they could definitely take out Reno, and definitely pose a stern challenge to Chico and UC Davis. But next year? We'll see how their recruiting goes.

So what's next for UCSC? They're fundraising their butts off the good ol' fashioned Santa Cruz way (ie panhandling). They're flying up to Bellingham, WA to challenge Western Washington for a seed at Pac Coast playoffs. Should be an interesting match, if memory serves Western Wash had some pretty sharp backs that we managed to keep contained only by completely choking them of possession (although I suppose I could do some research on the subject and check my own archives but meh...another day).

PN1= Washington State University
PN2= Western Washington University
NC1= Sac State
NC2= UCSC
Utah= they haven't shown up to Pac Coast playoffs since I was a freshman in like 04-05...uh if they brought anyone I suppose it'd be Utah State
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PCRFU Playoffs
Host: NCRFU (natural rotation - NC '09, U '10, PN '11)
Dates: April 3/4, 2009 (Fri/Sat)
Venue: Stanford
MC: Theresa Champagne

Friday Matches if PN2 wins play-in:
2pm: Match A: NC1 v PN2
4pm: Match B: U1 v PN1

Friday Matches if NC2 wins play-in:
2pm: Match A: NC1 v U1
4pm: Match B: NC2 v PN1

Saturday Matches:
2pm: Match C: Loser A v Loser B
4pm: Match D: Winner A v Winner B

Winner D = PC 1
Loser D = PC 2
Winner C = PC 3
Loser C = PC 4

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In Women's Club side news, a week after successfully winning the Champagne Classic the ABs stretched themselves again playing a double header um...today. The ABs faced off first against the SF Fog and then a later match against the Sacramento Amazons + a few whores. The low numbers led to a bit of early fatigue and drop in play but the Blues eventually cycled through the gears and hit top speed nailing in try after try out wide using Nathalie Marchino's seemingly endless speed and energy. The Blues won it quite a freaking lot to 5, with the Fog scoring a try near the end of the first half.

The second game was a bit like the first, with the Blues struggling a bit to cope with the physicality of the teams tight play (and spending a relatively large amount of time camped on their own tryline) before adapting to the conditions and creating cleanly sealed platforms for their backs to score off of. Petrie Quigley showed some nice tough defense on her own tryline squashing a number of dangerous Amazon forwards in their tracks and eventually poaching the ball to allow Berkeley to get ship the ball downfield and get some breathing space. Due credit should be given to the pack who gutted through both matches and had some good steals at lineout time. Oh and the ABs beat the Sacramento Amazons quite a lot to 0.

Alright so I should have been keeping score (and I know my match analysis was pretty poor) but I was busy running the kicking tee every couple minutes and I kind of just lost track. Even though the whole insurance thing was a bummer I had a really fun time being a rookie again. It's fun to be helpful and I ended up getting to line the fields which was pretty cool if not a little messy (and I may be in trouble because some of the jerseys got paint on them because apparently the paint have enough time to set...gah) and bringing the kicking tee was a new experience. Heh now I know that Steph Bruce likes to kick from a cone whereas Ruth Bryson prefers a real tee. Oh and I talked to Ellen Owens (or more accurately stuttered and stumbled all over my words) about learning coding game tape which is something I know very little about but am VERY INTERESTED in learning!! Weee! I'm stoked! I know I never managed to go to the UC Berkeley practices but it's mostly because I think they're at the same time as the ABs practices. Kal McMahon might move back to Berkeley and play with the ABs which would totally be fun. Oh and I can't believe that the ABs don't have cut tampons in their med kit...I'm going to have to cut some up for them. We had like three nosebleeds today and seriously, rolled gauze just doesn't cut it!

Alright so what's next?? Berkeley U-19 vs Alameda High School kick's off tomorrow at 11 at Thompson Field in Alameda. The lineouts were looking sharp last practice, and the girls were hitting the ball with more pace. Hopefully they'll do fine against Alameda.

Full contact!

2009-03-12T11:55:00.000-07:00

I'm going to make this quick 'cause I have to get back to job apps (I finally, finally am getting on track...really). Uh so we had a full contact practice last Thursday and it was seriously awesome. Granted I ran my butt off for two hours before hand but I still had some gas in the tank for the ABs practice and it left me for dead by the end of it. The closest thing that I could compare surviving that practice to was a final game, like a national championship game...that was the intensity level required for me to keep up. The scary thing is it didn't even seem like the Blues were trying...it's like they were still wearing kit gloves or something and I still got suplexed by vix (I really need a scrum cap). To put it simply my 110% equaled their 50% and every once in a while they'd take it up a notch and I'd go flying (literally). Still it was the coolest thing ever, 20 mins of full contact scrums, 20 of full lineouts and light phase play afterwords, then like an hour of full contact scrimmage (those going to champagne classic vs people who weren't) practicing their offense and defense. I'm still getting a hang of their...everything! Scrums, lineouts, defensive org, and attacking patterns it was pretty freaking magical! In scrums I'm still unsure of the basics like locking out, not sure of their cadence and calls...and what it means for the hooker. Lineouts are mine boggling, oh and they lift shorts at practice to save money on tape for lifting shelves. Oh on offense if I'm not rucking or supporting a back I should be about a yard and a half behind the scrumhalf. I've always stacked weakside because that's how we do shooters but it makes a feckload more sense to be there. It's fun being a pain in the ass at the breakdown and I created a few turnovers. Overall I'm totally in love with the blues. It was a bummer that I couldn't go to Champagne but I really needed to save the money...I'm down to my last rent check + all. Feh and then I lost my running shoes that'll cost 90-100 bucks to replace anyways. *Sigh* Shit happens.

Blues did good at CC, beating Belmont Shore in the Semi and then taking out a Boston/Beantown mixed team in the final. Lot's of people were playing out of position and the ABs had nary more then 21-22 players on any given day during this 6 game tournament.

Tuesday practice was canceled due to the extra wear and tear on players bodies so I hopped on Bart and caught a ride down to the Sequoias practice. My ankle was giving me a bit of trouble and I'm still fielding a nagging feeling that it may have a hairline fracture (it's been weeks since it got stomped on..) but it could just be the extra pressure on my arches because of my lack of proper shoes (*&@#^@*). It was fun 'cause I was definitely schooling my old teammates fitness-wise (which constituted the majority of practice) but it was mainly because...well...it's really easy to have energy and run around when you aren't working full time. Heh, it was still fun absolutely dusting my old flanker =] They still need people so if anyone in the San Jose/South Bay/Palo Alto/Los Gatos/Oakland/San Mateo area are looking for a fun team to play for make sure to look 'em up. They just put up a website and I'll link it in a bit. Alright, peace and I'll update more on the league later.

ps it's super cool helping out at the berkeley u-19 practice and they have their first game this Sunday against Alameda...it should be interesting!

Quite a handful of rugby

2009-02-28T09:46:00.000-08:00

So another week of quadruple practices for me and I'm pretty beat, beat up, and brow beaten by my parents for not job hunting 24/7. While my 'rents have a good point, at this point it's my money, my mistake. Annnd I might have gotten a small week long gig for a hundred bucks and every little bit helps.

Um on Tuesday my feet were absolutely killing me because I have no arches and I was barefoot for so long on Sunday (@ prom dress rugby). I didn't feel it on Sun or Mon, but when I put my cleats on (no arch support) SHIT I just about died. It was like sophomore year all over again, I could hardly walk much less run through practice (man I'm glad I finally bought good shoes and stopped having this pain on a regular basis). Later in a non-contact drill I was part of the defensive line, got bumped onto the ground and then someone planted on my instep ankle. The joint locked up and it seared like fire on impact but I think it's ok. It was a lot of weight on it and so I'm a bit worried that it could be fractured...namely because its such a difficult area to diagnose. Well I don't have two hundred dollars for x-rays so I'll just deal.

I'm having a blast helping out at the Berkeley U19 practices (despite the inordinate amount of muddy clothes I've had to wash as a result!). Actually my room smells like a swamp due to the hole in the ceiling, my muddy gear, and the lack of window screens and sunlight. All of it is my fault but still...I'm a tad worried about my lungs.

Alright in reality I'm just finishing up a post that I worked on weeks ago. So much shit has gone on I really don't have time for it all. More later. As always...your dutiful hooker signing out.

Synchronized Underwater Prom Dress Rugby Scuba Diving

2009-02-23T21:49:00.000-08:00

The Goalpost almost floated away on us:

So the Job Corps field was flooded and a number of participants from both teams showed up. While everyone was appropriately garbed for a barnstorming match, the weather didn't permit for a full contest. After much milling about, the women were split into motley(mixed) teams and decided to play about twenty to thirty minutes of touch rugby. There were a number of highly amusing moments where certain agile Eagle wings attempted to make some deft cuts and ended up plowing face first through the lake. Considering the circumstances a fair number of wet weather spectators showed up and stayed through till the end(although a few stayed in their cars the whole time). Apparently some money was made and much fun was had by the participants.

A motley crew of women's ruggers

-----------------------------------------
NorCal Collegiate Women's Rugby Updates

FEBRUARY 21 League Match Results
D1 Matches:
Cal 22 v Davis 10 (most of the D1 teams consider themselves to be rebuilding this year so it's not too surprising of a result. Davis may occasionally have better talent but Cal has a much better infrastructure, it's just a general observation but it may be the reason...I'll try to get the deets.)
Chico 24 v Reno 5 (Reno is a traditional contender for the wooden spoon)
D2 Matches:
SCU 24 v St. Mary's 17 (Now this is an interesting one, going off of history I would have expected St. Mary's to take this match easy. I talked to one of the Sac girls this weekend and apparently St. Mary's lost some of their size in their pack. Also credits got to be given to SCU, it's nice to see them with a win under their belts.)
UCSC played a mixed friendly with USF so no league points

Norcal Women's Collegiate League Standings for uh 08-09
D1:
Chico 15
Stanford 15
California 10
UC Davis 5
Humboldt 0
UN Reno 0

D2:
UC Santa Cruz 5
Sacramento St 5
Santa Clara 4
St Mary's 1
USF 0

Alright I guess that's it. Practice tomorrow =]

UC Berkeley Mens vs Univ. British Columbia

2009-02-21T21:08:00.000-08:00

So I missed what ended up being a really fun motley friendly between UCSC and USF because I didn't find out my ride was bailing until 10:30 the night before the match =p I tried to pull a lot of fast favors and scrambled around on craigslist to no avail. In the end I figured it wasn't worth 8+ hours of transit and 30 bucks to go to Santa Cruz for like three hours. Even though I missed all my damn friends and what looks to have been one heckuva fun game. The teams were mixed evenly and the match ended 5-5 in this wonky friendly. It's weird seeing your teammates in different colored jerseys...really...really weird.

Getting Pretty High on a Mixed Lineout

Wait why is our wing playing flanker and our 8 is a scrum-half??

Kathy Flores in a much better mood + our 8-man in USF colors (again..confusing)

Motley Team Picture...damnit I shoulda just taken public transit!

Alas..so what did I do with my Saturday plans down the drain? Go to another rugby game of course! I was kinda on the fence because the UCB vs UBC match cost money which isn't something I have a whole lot of so I ended up biking over to Witter Field rather late (but beating most of traffic...wee for cycling). I figured I'd try and sneak in with the whole 'I look like a teenage/middle school boy' thing. I get to the front door and they're checking school ID's so no dice and I don't have cash and they don't take card. I'm missing kickoff and everything (2 national guard choppers are flying overhead the anthem is sung and I'm sure the Cal band did something fancy). So I'm bummed and trod off to find an ATM, 15 minutes later I drag my butt back up the hill and they've closed off the gates. No more ticket sales, no more admission with a crowd of about thirty still trying to wheedle their way in. At this point I'm pretty much like 'are you shitting me?!'. Then some nice older gentleman walked up to the gates and said that he had a spare free ticket if anyone wanted it. I raised my hand and walked right in for free (no atm money needed)! I spent the first half mostly peeking through the clump of people bunched at the top of the bleachers. At half time I snag a perfect seat next to a nice older gentleman and all is well. The program was nifty, you couldn't hear what the announcer was saying at all and both teams played pretty exciting rugby.

Cal put the pressure on UBC early on through a number of successful penalty kicks although UBC seemed to have an easier time putting tries on the board. At first Cal's beefy forwards looked to counter-ruck and generally manhandle their UBC opposite numbers but this enthusiasm quickly vanished as the game wore on. Throughout the game there was a high number of penalties and infringements. Cal fell asleep at the beginning of the second half and got in a rather uncomfortable position being down 14-15 for most of the half. During this phase in the game it felt like Cal was kicking away possession when they needed to keep it in hand and work through the phases. It appeared to me that Cal's forwards were struggling to break the gainline when running the ball which left the backs to play a bit of footy for territory. Unfortunately UBC's back three were quite suave under the high ball and had big boots of their own, for a good long chunk the Cal Bears were deprived of the ball almost completely. UBC made great punching runs and broke the gainline consistently and had a very slippery wing whom Cal struggled to get into touch. It was only through some great effort by Cal's wing that the bear woke up and turned up the gears against the Canadian Thunderbirds. Cal eventually won it 31-15 but in reality the game was much closer then that. Both teams subbed a fair number of players late in the second half when most of the tries were scored which may be indicative of the turnaround.

My view from the stands:

The National Guard Rugby...uh truck.

The crowd, while it was at full capacity was rather quiet. A few people tried to crank up the atmosphere but it wasn't Millennium Stadium by any means. UBC's section managed to get pretty vocal. After the match I figured I'd get a few autographs because heck why not...they put a section in the program and all. I got Chris Biller's signature because hey he's a hooker and goff seems to like him a lot. There was a ton of different media sources swarming the players after the event, tv interviews, radio journalists, and paper hounds which was pretty nifty. Oh while I was there I saw Rikus Pretorius and got his autograph as well. Bleh...nerdy but whatever. It's kinda weird 'cause I think I'm older then both of em. Oh well it was still fun and I'd have regretted the opportunity if I hadn't gone for it. It's kind of weird really because now I play for a team where a good majority of the players are of international caliber and...they're my teammates. It'd be kinda like being plopped in the middle of the Justice League Headquarters or something. It's just odd.

Oh well prom dress rugby tomorrow. I think I'm relying on good old fashioned public transportation to get to Treasure Island tomorrow. Lovely really, I get to bart to SF to bus back across the bridge to TI. It ought to be fun, come out if you can.

One practice down....a heck of a lot more to go!

2009-02-20T15:14:00.000-08:00

This week has been crazy and it's not like I've gotten a WHOLE LOT accomplished but it's probably more then I've done in the last month so it's an improvement, all right? Just trust me...I mean heck I just installed a little hanging light doodad so I can finally SEE in my room at night! Holy crap it's amazing! Now onto rugby.

Tuesday: Was my first ABs practice and I'm not sure how my blog falls under their player policy. I think I read somewhere that you're not supposed to use their name without permission and such so I think I'm going to have to get things clarified before I proceed going into depth on the awesomeness that is their practices. I mean...super mondo gosh gee willikers awesome. I think it's ok going into the general stuff but if it gets cleared I think it'd be pretty nifty to post details on the sort of drills they do...cause they're obviously effective and surprisingly fun! Um but let's see...I've been biking a lot to try and build up my legs but I kinda pushed it the first day by trying to bike to the new Gilman turf fields. 6+ mile bike in the freezing rain before my first practice back from my hip injury = bad decision making on my part. I made it through warm-ups and about 3 drills before my legs were completely kaput. On the plus side I got to check out my hip mobility and strength with Laura Cabrera who gave me some cool tips + exercises and told me to check back in two weeks. It's neat because beyond the obvious (increased athleticism, focus, and skill level) each practice is planned with themes. Like instead of doing a drill just to practice a basic skill (passing) you're doing a drill that involves passing but is focused on developing field awareness. It's a given that you can pass now you're working on spacing, peripheral vision, and communication. Top two inches stuff. Oh I also had the obligatory rookie jackass moment where I managed to singlehandedly screw up a basic four corners drill. They run four corners with four balls and when they run to the center and pass to a direction they then run straight whereas I'm deeply ingrained to follow behind my pass. So besides not being used to focusing on four ballcarriers I also let nerves get the best of me and pretty much screwed up the drill about 6 times =p Oh well at least I learned my lesson and it reminded me that I have to really focus on instructions and the drill at hand. Everything is new and interesting and I think I have at least 3-5 lightbulb moments a practice.

Wednesday and Thursday I had practice with the Berkeley U-19 team (I didn't realize that they were an area team and not a HS team). Practices got a lot better, or at least I think I'm annoying the girls less. More recruits showed up so I think they have about 10 or 11 players which is pretty exciting. They have a game in about ten days that I think I'm missing because UCSC has a league game against St. Mary's. Ashley English led practice for the last two days and I worked with JQ to work on lineout throws with one of the girls. For the most part I just help move around the cones, snag balls, and do 1 on 1 stuff with rookies (basic passing, falling, knee tackling, and basic rucking/driving position).

Snagged a ride with Ashley to the ABs practice after that and because I didn't kill my legs on the bike ride (and perhaps due to the 3 x 10, 3 times a day lunges, heel touches and weird praying motions that I've been doing at LC's behest) I actually made it through the whole practice! Wooohoo! This practice seemed geared more towards communication, and I even did the contact drills. They were "soft" contact drills but with this group it's like being smashed by a very precise bullet train. I was definitely cautious going into contact but I was definitely getting rocked. It was pretty funny 'cause there was one part of a drill where you drove a partner about twenty meters while maintaining good form. I'm 220, I'm not the easiest thing to drive but Kelly Griffin (UCLA alum and socal griffins acclaim) was my partner and I literally flew! Let's just say I've never sprinted that fast in my life and there I was doing it in reverse. It was kinda like being hit by superwoman. Anyhoo I survived the practice with one knee to the forehead (I need to keep my head down when I'm placing the ball in a ruck) and a knock to the nose but bones intact! I'm still kinda working on learning all the different terminology that they use...I mean it may just be a D1 thing but grapes = inside passing or a vertical attack? Inside passing isn't the same as ours though...it just means popping to a runner off your hip not literally passing left right left right...uh or maybe and I'm just getting confused again. Anyhoo Amara was right. I am slow to react to changes in play, it's something to work on. Pass the ball to the hole, don't run to the hole with the ball. Stuff that is probably so obvious to other teams is all brilliant news to me. I'm also trying to get the hang of being able to imagine the boundaries when Coach is explaining a drill...bleh. I'll just have to keep trying =]

AND FIND A JOB!

It doesn't sound like anyone is driving down to the Champagne Classic but it may be a good thing. I'm pretty overcautious when it comes to injuries and it's served me well in the past (I've only re-injured myself once and it was for TAU playoffs) so for physical and financial reasons I may not end up attending the away matches (actually just make that a no). Which is a huge bummer because I've ALWAYS wanted to attend the Champagne Classic (and USA 7s) etc etc but oh well. There's always next year.

Oh in college news here is the pelicanrefs report on the Sac State vs St. Mary's game:

SAC STATE women 56 – St. Mary's 0 Referee: Bjorn Stumer
The final score of this match - Sac State Women 56 (29) - St. Mary's 0 pretty much sums up the one sided affair. The Sacramento ladies were just too fit, big, and skilled for a youthful St. Mary side which, to its credit, continued to soldier on throughout the match. The tries came in fast and furious in the first half, a number scored by Sacramento's sturdy but deceivingly fast No. 12, who appeared to cut through defenders at will. Five more tries were scored in the second half for a total of ten, three of which converted.

The only item of note is that, due to a number of collapsed scrums of unclear source, I called the scrums uncontested from the 16th minute of the second half.

As usual the ladies ruggers were polite, played in the spirit of the game, and refrained from the back talk that is frequent in the men's game. A wonderful dedicated pitch and a smallish but friendly crowd in attendance contributed to the good day.

There's another article floating around somewhere...and I added the link to Las Banditas because A)Jax is awesome B) Uhh Anna Richards is my biggest hero ever (so much so that if she asked me I'd switch to flyhalf...ahhaaaa) C)it's a funny cool site so check it out.

ABs vs SF Fog Prom Dress Rugby this weekend on Treasure Island. Go if you can. I won't be in a dress though. Ha.

UCSC will be playing USF this weekend at the most beautiful pitch on earth (or at least in NorCal). Of course I'll be there.

The pitch in heaven:

NorCal Select Side Developmental Camps Spring 09 + U23 Grizzly Info

2009-02-17T16:37:00.000-08:00

Ripped straight from the email list but it's important info:

Hi everyone

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Mari Therrien and I'm coaching the U23 Grizzly select side this year. I've been playing rugby for over 12 years and have been gradually transitioning from player to coach. I've played select side rugby for over 10 years and been coached by lots of great coaches including the current WNT coaches. I was an assistant coach for the Grizzlies last year and am taking over as head coach this year as Jarred moves on to coach the senior side. The Grizzly coaching team this year will also include Michelle Stephen (Grizzly asst coach last year, ORSU hooker) as our Tight 5 specialist and Krista Gust (ORSU, Senior Grizzlies) as our backrow specialist. We like open, fast moving rugby and that's the style we'll be playing this year as we look to capitalize on the new ELVs. And we all play and coach rugby because it's fun so we will have lots of fun as we work to create a great team!

On April 25th we will be holding a regional U23 Development camp in the Bay area. This camp is open to all U23 players and will NOT be a tryout for the Grizzlies. The focus of this camp will be general skill development for all players from rookies to more experienced players with the goal of exposing more girls to select-side rugby without the pressure or expectation of tryouts. From all of the regional camps 40-50 players total will be invited to a tryout/training camp which will be held in May 9-10th. This training camp will most likely be held in Portland as it is the most central location in our territory. If players are unable to participate in one of the regional development camps and are still interested in trying out for the Grizzlies U23 team they will need to contact me directly. We held a skills camp in Oregon last weekend and will be holding camps in Seattle March 8th and Utah April 11th.

Please encourage all of your U23 players to come to this camp; the more the merrier! We'll incorporate a lot of rugby principles into fun games and I think everyone will have a good time! Throughout the day we'll cover a lot fundamental skills and hopefully introduce some fun new ways to work on them that you can bring back to your club if you wish. Coaches are welcome to come to the camp to see what we're working on and provide input on your players. We're still working on the final details for the camp including field space so I will email you as soon as we have a location nailed down. Assuming it works for the location we'll probably run the camp from approximately 9-3. (If you have any info on fields or could host this camp please email me!)

If you can distribute this information to all the U23 players on your team I would appreciate it. And if you can get a gauge of how many players from your team will be coming and shoot me an email that would be great! As you know it helps to know if you're planning for 45 players or only 15 players!

Thanks!

Mari Therrien
maritherrien@gmail DOT com
U23 Grizzlies Head Coach

I think this is a super cool idea because I know personally I've always been too intimidated to try out for select sides (uhh we'll just ignore the fitness and financial issues =p) but a...this is a really neat opportunity for LAU to get together and have some fun while yknow...developing. Oh yea and I made a slight mod to her letter because she originally sent out the wrong dates for the norcal camp. Alrighty and I'm still stoked for practice tonight...despite the downpour and thunderstorms.

International Rugby Fan

2009-02-16T19:33:00.000-08:00

For the record in my last post I mentioned my lack of interest in men's rugby. I should correct that...I don't care about the domestic men's game. International rugby however....is a whole different can of worms! My favorite national teams are (in order of importance) Wales, Argentina, Australia (and at the very least ANYBODY who is playing England!). I'm a big 6 Nations fan and Wales, Scotland, Italy, France, Ireland, and England (not by skill but by emotional attachment). H-cup I've been all about Bath (although it sucks about stevens) which is pretty ironic given my rancor towards the English National team but it's probably because all the pricks play for the wasps or falcons. In past years I like the Ospreys and Stade Franceis...it's weird to see Cardiff on top of the charts. Tri-nations I'm all about Australia 'cause Matt Gitteau is brilliant and cute and Deans has been doing an alright job. Super 14 I'm a fan of Western Force for the same reasons. Men's 7s I like everybody except NZ. Anything regarding the women's international game and I'll actually support the Eagles (despite the fact that I'll give mad props to the black ferns Richards is my all time hero). Women's 6 Nations I'll stick with Wales...nifty that they managed to get 2nd last year off of kicks. My world XV is probably an odd mess of players who would never slot in together but I will give a list of faves and asshats.

****Let it be noted that these are the opinions of a fan and not meant to be analytical or represent any sort of critical thought in the slightest...that is an entirely different matter altogether. This is merely a silly little list of school girl-like crushes and bitter anti-English grudges****

The Cool Kids
---------------
Gethin Jenkins (fit, fast, great hands)
Lee Meers (ok maybe I just like that his nickname is "the little pig"
Matt Stevens (stupid drugs!)
Victor Matfield (no explanation necessary)
The whole Argentinian Pack (nuff said)
Martin Williams (OG and awesome)
Ryan Jones (despite lack of form currently)
George Smith (OG and awesome)
Sergio Parrisse (good hands good leadership)
Dwayne Peel (I just love him ok)
Mike Blair (I might just love him more, footwork, leadership, great field vision and darts)
Juan Martin Hernandez (world cup...I was def. in the camp that thought he should stick to fullback when he first started insisting that he could play fly...man was I wrong and man am I glad I was wrong)
Luke Macallister
Augustin Pichot
Shane Williams
Lee Byrne
+ more

Asshats
---------
Dylan Hartley (cocky asshat)
Mike Phillips (for trying to grubber the ball through the English defense like 7+ times and being a cocky asshat)
Andrew Sheridan
Jonny Wilkinson (for being the most fragile sonnava bitch ever)
Toby Flood
actually can I just say the entire English backline?
Danny Grewcock
Piri Weepu
Ali Williams
Jean-Baptiste Élissalde (because he's a scrum-half...stop trying)
Ronan O'Gara (see Jonny Wilkinson)
BOD (over-rated)
Gordon D'arcy (asshat)
The Lamont brothers (see Jonny Wilkinson...let the Evans brothers play...they can actually tackle and score!)
I'm sure I hate more people but anyhoo

Tomorrow is my first practice with the ABs and hopefully I can get some help on my hip problem. Ugh it's probably going to be rainy...which wouldn't be a problem if I didn't ride my bike everywhere. =p More updates and women's rugby later! (this post is probably the result of me missing USA 7s due to money issues and a lack of a car).

Berkeley High School Rugby Practice

2009-02-12T23:13:00.000-08:00

I'm going to keep this post short because I need to stop blogging at around midnight and staying up until 2am. It's really not helping the olde job search. So I've been biking around 5-8 miles a day since Monday and its felt amazing. Biking has always been a release for me, I'm still riding the tiny green schwinn hybrid that I've had since Middle School (yea I'm short ok). I've clocked more miles on this baby then on my car and for me it's home. Gliding through traffic, laughing at the chumps stuck for hours in traffic, sprinting when I want to sprint or to avoid being hit...or just letting go, stretching my arms and flying. There's nothing like it! If you're hot just bike faster, sweat more, and let the wind cool you. Too cold? Just bike faster, warm up! Damn I love my bike.

Ehhhh oh right rugby.

So Berkeley High School has around 6-8 players. There are a number of competitive HS teams in the area to play...they just need numbers. If anyone has kids in the Berkeley school system...send 'em out for rugby. Duh. What else, we're practicing on this slip of a field and it's been wet as hell in the last couple of days. For me I'm just there to help out, add a body to practice, and be an extra set of eyes. So far I've been helping a new recruit get up to speed with passing and basic contact skills. I'm still getting used to the differences between working with college women and high school girls. I'm trying to watch my language and keep things upbeat. So far I've worked with JQ from the ABs (ex-cal hooker) and Amanda (dunno an ex-all blue flanker). Overall their skills aren't too shabby, I was pretty pleasantly surprised...their passing form and hands are about the same as a college recruit. Hitting things hard and at pace is the main thing they're struggling with. It's difficult when they don't really have more experienced teammates to look at for examples. I'm finding it kinda hard to help out because I don't really have my fundamentals nailed down myself (to the standards of say the ABs) so I'm not that confident running/spotting drills that I haven't really worked on myself. At least I've gotten to see some neat drills and practiced talking to high school kids again. It's tough because at that age everyone sounds like they're being condescending to them versus college kids are out of their element and willing to ask for help. *shrugs* I'll keep working on it till I get a job...they have a game coming up soon and only have a scrum half. Yup. So next week I'm supposed to help pick out and train a hooker with JQ and teach how to scrum with a tight five. How do you recruit at the high school level? Any suggestions please leave a comment at the beeeeeep.

So upcoming events....uh the b-side game UCSC vs Santa Clara got canceled because their fields were closed due to the rain (that I've been slogging through on my bike after rolling around in mud puddles). Feb 21st Cal men's team is play Univ. British Columbia at Witter Field in Berkeley. Normally I don't mention men's stuff (actually this might be the first time I've ever touched upon the fact that men play this game too) but it's going to be the first in a series of broadcast games on like...tv...on stations you don't have to pay up the ass for (ESPNU) so if you're in the area watch the match in person and then watch the time-delayed broadcast so (American) advertisers can give a shit about our sport. What else...Wed Feb 18 there's a rugby development meeting on treasure island 6-9 which I may try to go to...although it might mean missing the HS practice....hmm.

Alright that's it...the Stanford vs Cal game review gets pushed back even further. Balls oh well. Gnite.

Sacramento State WRFC vs USF

2009-02-10T21:57:00.000-08:00

So I've had another busy rugby weekend and I'm getting further and further behind on this blog so I'll just have to keep plugging away. I think K-Train put it best a few posts back that sometimes its the hardest to blog when you have too much to say. I really am living in rugby heaven right now...there's so much rugby going on in the Bay Area that I'm actually going to have to skip some rugby events. Crazy right? Yea well whatever I'm missing UCSC's b-side match against Santa Clara University tomorrow night...mostly because I volunteered to go to the Berkeley High practice (and it saves me 20 bucks and is only a short bike ride away). Ummm so stupid me I went to the field today...having managed to switch around the practice days (between the HS and the All Blues). I sat around awkwardly playing around with a ball before scoping out the other fields at the park and then finally summing up enough courage to call a teammate and ask why no one was at the field. Bleh. Apparently they practice Wed + Thursday nights...which is a tad odd but whatever. This weekend is another by for UCSC and Sac State is playing St Mary's in Sacramento. Feb 21st UCSC plays USF...uh I don't know where...probably in Santa Cruz. On Sunday Feb 22 there is Prom Dress rugby between the ABs and the SF Fog 2-5pm at the Job Corps Field on Treasure Island aka the Goose poop field 15 bucks for entry and a hamburger. And more...I dunno I'm pooped just thinking about it all. Practice for the ABs start soon Feb 17. UGH AND I'M STILL UNEMPLOYED. Heaven's knows why...it's not like I don't foolishly post everything and anything on this goshforsaken blog in a highly unprofessional manner.

Alright, back to business. I ended up attending both matches and it ends up I can't really concentrate on more then a single match in one day. Or maybe because the second game just paled in comparison to the competitive excitement of the first match. So anyhoo, I have a lot more to talk about when it comes to the Stanford vs UC Berkeley game and because of that fact I'm going to postpone my review of it until later (aka maybe tomorrow). Instead I'll focus on the second game which was hardly a match at all.

Ok that wasn't really meant to be a shot it's just poor planning. Sac State should never have been USF's first match of DII collegiate rugby. I can't say I know much about the team (USF) and the league didn't really know what to expect out of a brand new side coached by the WNT head coach Kathy Flores. Despite its instability this league has been fairly competitive in the last couple of years so it isn't a real shocker given the circumstances that Sac State trounced them. Sac State's (cal state Sacramento) been on a rampage all of pre-season and quite on form so they smashed their way through the USF defense left and right. Their pack was dominant, wheeling or driving every scrum, lineouts were nailed, and rucks were pretty rough as well. Sac had the pace and power to grind USF into the dust and if this match review sounds a little one sided it's because the game just WAS that way. Sacramento scored I don't know 6-8 trys in the first half...maybe more, USF lost about 6-8 players in the first half to some rather serious looking injuries. One or two players had to be stretchered off and at least one girl got a gnarly concussion. There was also some handbags, which is pretty rare to see in our league. I think it was from a ruck but it might have been a scrum but a USF girl punched Sac's lock (and captain) in the mouth and she retaliated with a punch to the face. No cards were given, the ref just gave em a chat. I talked to Sac's captain about the incident and she was highly apologetic and was pretty sorry about the whole mess. Ehh overall the match involved a lot of knock-ons, scrums, turnovers to Sacramento and then some massive stiff-arms (both through the forwards punching through or their FLYING backs)and ending in tries. USF never really threatened Sac's tryline. The pitch was turf with duct tape marking the lines. USF seemed to have a fair amount of fans and the facilities were nice. They also appeared to have a couple of assistant coaches. Because of the frequent injuries USF soon ran short of players and the teams were reduced to playing 12s. Then for some reason it switched to USF just playing down again. An injury shortly after half-time resulted in the game being canceled altogether. Sac's coaches were definitely ruthless in pursuing the win despite the matches friendly status. I dunno I think the whole thing might or might not be a misunderstanding...after the first bout of injuries USF proposed forfeiting and borrowing players from sacramento but Sac refused. Thus instead of having a mutually beneficial friendly this farce of a league match was allowed to play on. I dunno, it seems hypocritical for me to complain about the match given UCSC's recent 55-0 victory over Santa Clara (in a fairly similar fashion) but I think the difference is the injury rate. Yea a couple of the Santa Clara girls got hurt and one of ours messed up her ankle but it wasn't the same thrashing. The Santa Clara women were physically prepared for the match and the intensity of playing an A-side game. While on the losing side of many of the breakdowns (and occasionally unaware of certain laws) they were still very competitive and had fairly safe form going into contact. I mean it really is hard to judge..I don't have any doubts about Kathy Flores' coaching ability but I really don't know anything about the program. Apparently they had coaches before but I don't know who they used to play etc...so all of this is really up to speculation. I dunno I feel like the match would have gone better if it had been billed as a friendly b-side match because perhaps the coaching decisions would have differed. I guess the one positive that can be drawn from this whole thing is that Women's Collegiate DII has gotten a lot fitter and tougher and gone are the days when you could slap together a side and expect to win (or survive). It should also be noted that Sac doesn't really have a whole lot of players so they couldn't really field a b-side to play USF either.

This kinda brings me to my next point...rugby...and the numbers game. Granted this is the number of CIPPed players (and everyone knows that lots of kids quit before league even starts so take these numbers with a grain of salt).

Number of CIPPed Players ordered by last years standings:
Div II
------------
UCSC 47
Sac State 21
St. Mary's 38
Santa Clara 24
USF 18

Div I (please forgive me but I don't really remember how the chips fell last year and I'm kinda beat so I don't feel like researching em...but I'll list the teams in roughly the right order...)
------------
Stanford 43
Davis 50
Cal 54
Chico 32
Humboldt 27
UNR 32

Just some food for thought. Yea I know Santa Cruz should move to D1. We just got A LOT of rookies this year. That's why it's pretty exciting to have a b-side match against Santa Clara 'cause it's the first time that we can really field one (uh although a lot of the n00bs can't make it to the game so we might have a few starters). The admin and support structure has to grow a lot though...the ABs have like 12 executive officers and I think we have a match secretary, a treasurer, and a social chair...which just doesn't cut it anymore. Plus the team is trying to raise money by recycling cans...*sighs and shakes her head* anyways...more updates tomorrow. I don't want to seem overly negative/pre-occupied by the Sac vs USF match...I'm glad USF is joining our league (they had a ton of heart sticking with it and not giving up till they absolutely had to) and Sac showed some major attacking prowess. It's just painful to watch so many injuries!

Oh and last but not least it was damn hard to watch the match 'cause the two teams were practically wearing the same jerseys!

Sac State is on the right wearing Green and White and Gold, USF is on the left wearing Sac State's old jerseys...I mean Green and White and Gold.

Rugby Fundraising in the South

2009-02-06T11:41:00.000-08:00

Wow...I just had to post this. LA Tech (Louisiana probably) WRFC raising money beating the shit out of a car. Seems to be working too! Although this probably wouldn't go over so well in recycle crazy California. At least its innovative...makes you wonder how they a) got the car b) got the car on campus and c) got the university to agree to let 'em do it.

Oh and the Chico vs Texas A & M match got posted on youtube as well:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Red/white stripes is chico and the solid maroon(?) is Texas A & M. The angry guy is Chico's coach.

I'm probably going to watch the USF vs Sac State game at the USF Koret Center at 3 o'clock on Saturday. I may go watch the Berkeley vs Stanford match at 12 the same day at Memorial Stadium. We'll see...

South Bay Sequoias WRFC

2009-02-05T00:37:00.000-08:00

So I went to the meeting tonight and took a couple friends. I pretty much destroyed my car doing so but it was worth it. Here are the deets from the meeting. Man I'm tired from writing this up. I know I state it at the bottom of the post but I'll write it here as well. I'm still playing for the All Blues, I'm just stoked that there's a women's team starting in the south bay. I'll do anything to get my old mates to start playing rugby again and this sounds like a cool convenient team for them.

So here's the deal, a new women's rugby team is starting up in the south bay (Palo Alto, San Jose, Santa Clara area). The team bills itself as a third option, not too competitive and elite oriented, not too social, but just right. The team aims to become a fun competitive side with a more lax practice schedule and inclusive nature where all players can work together to achieve their goals. The core principal of the club appears to be community building, wherein the club will strive to give back to the community and raise awareness of the sport whilst remembering to have fun playing the game as well. The two co-founders are Katrina Logan and Tina Nesburg (who are both super legit ruggers) with Griff volunteering to coach.

At the meeting they reviewed long term and short term goals, as well as fund raising, team name, jersey colors, a rough spring schedule, task dispersal, CIPPing, and the next meeting time.

Long term goals are pretty much the principals listed above plus Katrina is looking into getting the club inc. and non-profit status to aid in fund raising efforts. So to recap succinctly: practice 1x a week, get youth involved in rugby, volunteer, and recruit.

Short term goals to get the club up and running some funds have to acquired. It would cost the team 100 bucks an hour to rent the STANFORD FIELD for practice + 50 dollars to run the lights. While this seems like a lot of money it's actually pretty cheap (15 players, 10 bucks a practice) and it's a beauty of a pitch. Additionally since league is in fall most of the practices wouldn't require lights. Practices would most likely be around 7 as that's when the collegiate side finishes up.

Fundraising ideas included clam bakes (Feb 28th...there's one in stanford that they might try and link up) and silent auctions of manual labor like baby sitting etc. Shoreline concerts were also mentioned where team members man booths and get paid + tip for volunteering. Also hooking up with SF Fog and their beer booth at pride and possibly other fund raisers with the club. Additionally getting sponsorship from employers would be a big plus.

As for the team name the Sequoias is kinda at the top of the heap. They want to make the name significant to the area to play into their whole community theme. If you've got something better, submit it but for now it stands.

They're welcome to any suggestions for jersey designs, colors look to be red/white or red/black. Personally I kinda think a red/brown would be cool but hey I'm color blind.

In the near future the Champagne Classic (March 7-8) would cost 375 bucks to enter, they're also thinking about friendly matches against local college sides like Davis and Berkeley. Once summer starts up there's Palo Alto 7s which costs 250 for a team (last years price).

In the immediate list of things to do:
Make a team email address (for info and inquiries)
Make a team google group
Make a blogspot/wordpress/legit website to put our info out on the net
Make a facebook group for all the kiddies
Make a team logo
Print shirts so we have something to play in until we can afford jerseys
Get started fundraising
Design jerseys in case some crazy rich person gives us money
Contact Santa Clara University about helping out their team/practicing with them until we can afford our own field (my suggestion)

The plan is to meet every two weeks to keep the ball rolling and everyone focused. The immediate goal for everyone is to find at least one new person to bring to the next meeting. Which is going to be at Steuber Stadium again (@ Stanford University) at 7 pm February 18 which is a Thursday.

Coolbeans =] I think I took enough notes and I don't think I left anything out. This is going to be a super neat team folks, so get back on the damn horse and start playing rugby again! Any questions? Email katrina.logan@gmail.com

PS I'm still playing for the All Blues. I just love rugby and help out where I can

UCSC WRFC vs Santa Clara Univ.

2009-02-03T08:37:00.000-08:00

I caught a ride with one of our kid's dad's down to Santa Clara to watch our first league match of the season. While we can't take too much confidence from the final score of 55-0 it was nice to see our forwards rucking correctly. Over-committing of course but winning them, counter-rucking rather effectively as well. We occasionally won their lineouts and practically every scrum until it went uncontested in the last quarter of the match. Santa Clara has been a developing team for a while and it's looking like they're finally starting to get the numbers they need to consistently practice. A large number of their players were either completely new or playing out of position. Their scrumhalf was brand new and putting the ball into the scrum by bouncing it in on it's nose. They were often offsides on defense (multiple penalties for just running around rucks and picking up the ball) and played the ball on the ground but hey they're just teaching fundamentals. It doesn't sound like they had much of a preseason so I sent their vp some links and info about Berkeley's camps and some post-season events where they could get some additional game time to supplement our 4 team league. Our kids learned a lot from the game, with less pressure they got to build some confidence and for once had the gas to support each other. Our fullback Kathy scored a hat trick and our fly dotted down two. Tackling is coming along...we have two weeks before our next game...hopefully we can keep our skills sharp before locking horns with USF and Kathy Flores. It's weird, I'm going to watch USF vs Sac State this weekend and we'll see how they do. She's an amazing coach and I have no doubt that her players will be as technically sound as possible but it really is a litmus test for how much you can teach collegiate women in a quarter. I mean they're a brand new team and I think they might have only had one match or two during pre-season. Sac state will be chomping at the bit to take lead this year so I doubt we'll see any mercy and they are pretty damn battle hardened. They've been playing TOUGH matches all of pre-season with women's senior teams like the Davis Doubledeckers.

Oh and sac scouted our game and laughed as they left. We'll see...will the kids live up to our legacy of 6+ years of sweeping league? They have the potential...Heh. As dedicated as I am to UCSC I'm still working on the getting over it part. It's hard to de-attach, I've already had my four years. I put in my effort, won league for four years, won pac coast three years, made it to the semis 3 years, lost the big game, won the big game. Not too shabby, what's done is done, it's their team now. I know I've been repeating it like a mantra...but it's tough when a team has become so interwoven with your everyday life. Rugby isn't just something I do or like, it really has been a guiding force for me. Hence my move to the bay =p

Next up =========> I might actually start talking about the blues...except I can't because it's part of their player clause...so I don't know what I'll do about that. I probably will be going to the South Bay Women's club startup meeting to keep some friends company. And duh, info on the USF and sac state game.

Pics from Santa Clara:

Taking Public Trans to Another Rugby Game

2009-01-30T20:44:00.001-08:00

It's been an exciting week. Tomorrow morning bright and early I'm leaving to catch a rugby match, the first league game of the season. UCSC vs Santa Clara! It should be fun. Wish me luck getting there and I'll give the full update once I get back.

UCSC vs Chico + Rugby Videos Galore

2009-01-29T23:18:00.001-08:00

To start out...I'm no longer on emo island (pronounced emu and accompanied by a hand gesture representing emo curtains aka bangs). I got to hang out with my old D2 front row rival and buddy come new teammate Georgi. We went to a godawful drag show last night but had a good time until that point. Went to the follow up interview today for that random gambling associate job (that's kinda sketch) and subsequently passed an became an actual candidate (woo!). I also drove there and to my friend Mishi's house (ex-teammate) and told her what's up in rugby news ('cause she obviously doesn't read my blog). I got to recharge my cat batteries by playing with her new kitty "Cougar" for an hour and now I'm all warm and fuzzy. I told her about the new team forming up in the South Bay and about the Philippine women's national rugby team (they're taking all comers who have XV's experience and a Filipino parent). So I'm slowly but surely getting over my phobia of driving (I drove to TWO places today). I had dinner with my host family and bonded with the dad by trading injury stories and listening about his motorcycle wrecks. I also filled out an application for an awesome admin assistant job at Mills (which I really hope I get) and now am semi-proficient at writing cover letters. Basically I feel pretty accomplished today...I think I'm finally getting back into the swing of things.

So now it's time for the Ruuuuuuugby Reeeewind where I review all the shit I haven't talked about in the last month. So we (UCSC...even though I'm an alum) played chico, and it was kick ass to see things really start to come together. Holy fuck do we have a lot of girls! We have 45 rostered players!! Granted subtract like 5 for quitters and 10 injured folk (I'm serious it's ridiculous) we have about 30 healthy kids. THIRTY, it's league time and we have THIRTY healthy ruggers. Shit son we won nationals with 16-17. It's madness (and an indicator that it's about time for Santa Cruz to move up to D1). Kids are busting gut at work out groups, attending practice, and learning (they're finally getting over the hump of trying to get by without vets). It's awesome! The Chico game wasn't perfect by any stretch but it was a good indicator of what this team can do once it starts firing on all cylinders. Chico isn't a bad side, they're in a rebuilding year as well, and rumor has it they benched a few of their starters in the first half. But their grizzly was on the pitch and I recognized quite a few decent players so we weren't playing no b-side either. UCSC struck first with a bloody gorgeous try in the opening minute, and it was a long beauty starting near their own twenty-two. The ball was brought to the outside then swiftly back in with great support play between backs and the forwards (our lovely 8 Kari Lentz touched it down after staving off two fierce looking chico wildcats).

Our scrums were significantly better (we were MOVING THEM), our lineouts were often not straight (although occasionally unfairly called), our rucks worked fairly well. Service from the back of the scrum wasn't great though, which would be more of a cause for concern if their scrumhalf wasn't continually offside (and FEEDING SIR!) but I know the woman and she's a great chica off the pitch (lets just call her effective since the ref never called it).

Lots of infringements and knockons from both sides (a surprisingly high amount from chico). Ermm chico did a lot of pick and goes and did a lot of inside passing and pack play. It wasn't until the 2nd half that they began opening the game up and spreading out their attack (which finally exploited the dreaded d2 vs d1 fitness gap. Oh and one of our props wore ridiculously ugly gold metallic spandex tights and I was embarrassed cause the doofus was on our team (it was like the bandanna girl from Plymouth State or those obnoxious pink poodle skirts that Coast wore a couple years back in SoCal 7s tournaments) I just wanted to run onto the pitch and tackle the crap out of her. *ahem* alright so overall nice passage of play, two 40 minute halves and then an extra 20 min b-side match. The ref was hella chill, friendly, congenial, and kept the game flowing as much as possible. I gave him a bit of stick from the sidelines but I think I'm just getting itchy to be healthy and play again. We were offsides on defense, they were offsides defensively on set plays, and they were LAYING ALL OVER THE BALL. There was a weird call for "funneling"? Worst play of the game was when our fullback/wing popped an egg to the other team and proceeded to protect it from her teammates.

Oh I ran into Carrie an old chico alum who played U-23 grizzlies and now plays for NYC..and I don't remember her name! I played on a tens team with her "TEAM KARI/CARRIE" at a Berkeley tournament a couple years back. If anyone could help me out with that it'd be nice. She's a little blonde scrumhalf so it isn't Carrie Dubray. Although apparently she played in the National Championship final against Berkeley.

Right...well here's the ref report on pelicanrefs.com

UC SANTA CRUZ women 26 – Chico State 5 Referee: Schnack
UCSC Women beat Chico State Women at UCSC, 26-5, on Saturday January 24th.

This was a fun match backed by seasonably appropriate cold with light rain, a few whistles, four first-half Slug tries, a few close (but not close enough) deep excursions by Chico, and finally an excellent second-half five-phase (with advantage) try by Chico.

Great follow-up and support, along with tenacious running gave the Slugs a 26-0 lead at half. Chico's game was sidetracked with infringements at the tackle and rucks, not to mention committing too many folks (intentionally or not) into the rucks.

The second half was a cleaner version of the first, with both sides taking to each other. Chico put together some good possessions, and got some reward that Saturday with a fun five+ phase combo of runtackleruckruntackleruckadvantagespinoutruntacklepoppasstackleruckrun...etc. Experiencing a series like that makes me happy to be breathing.A quick 2nd sides match followed (thanks to both Santa Rose JC and UCSC Mens for giving them twenty). The Slugs won this, for what it's worth, unofficially 7-0 (score torn off for a grocery list now long gone, so I don't have the final).

Fun day, welcome rain, more welcome rugby for folks. Here's to more of it.

There's plenty of more stuff on rugby rewind! But that's for later on in the week. Aren't you glad I'm finally getting caught up?

Here's two great videos (WATCH THEM IN HD otherwise they're pretty unviewable), one from rugbydump and the other from Drew Women's RFC. Doesn't it just make you feel special?

ps the rugby in this next video is pretty poor but g'damnit the comedy is great

Damn I've been dragging ass

2009-01-28T13:15:00.000-08:00

Soooo I haven't done a whole lot of posting this month...total understatement! And unlike Wendy I don't have an excuse =p. Alright let's get started...in life I've moved up to Oakland and I'm having a grand old time sitting on my butt pretending to look for a job. So I need to get on that, and my rehab, and find some friends up here. It's official, graduating, moving to a new city, and being unemployed pretty much is the perfect way to HAVE NO FRIENDS and be bored shitless. Yes I could wander around town and enjoy myself if I wasn't unemployed with a savings fund that is shrinking by the day and on top of that I'm supposed to minimize the amount of walking I'm supposed to do and finally the guilt of not working on getting a job has been causing me to hole up and pretend I'm trying to get a job (which I'm kinda not). *sigh*. So I took a week off (after taking a week off to move, and then taking a week off to recover from dealing with my fam for a week...) and it's been a whole month since I've graduated and I haven't done a whole lot. About two weeks ago I got cleared to walk (cause my bones healed) but yea I'm not supposed to do it mondo and I need to rehab my hip because I can't even sit in the butterfly stretch position (yea, sit, not even do it). It's pretty worrisome and bumming me out 'cause I can't afford rehab but this is something that will definitely prevent me from playing rugby again if I don't fix it right.I've been cycling 20 min a day (sometimes twice) but I still can't walk quickly. So that's my rant, which is perfect because now that I've expressed it I can look back at it tomorrow and realize what a silly git I am and get on with finding a job. Man I love this blog (which shouldn't be a diary but really is).

In RUGBY NEWS (which is the only reason people read this if they read it at all)...
UC Berkeley (aka CAL) had their annual clinic at UCSC and I was still in town to observe. Head Coach Ellen Owens and asst coach Katie Chou ran the clinic with our coaches and led the kids through some fun box play drills. In groups of 15-20 per box the facilitator would call out two numbers, the first being how many people should group together and the second how many pairs of feet were allowed to be touching the ground. An example would be 4,2 where four people had to make a group where only two people had feet on the ground, so they'd either have two people piggy back or toss themselves on the ground. There were some basic hands drills and then bringing it wide with inside passing at the end. There was also a box tackle drill where each box was split into two numbered teams. Each team stood on a sideline with the ball in the middle of the box. The facilitator would call out a two numbers, and those players would turn the corner and race for the ball. The first person there would tap the ball and be a defender, the second would pick the ball and try and score. It was interesting because while I was watching this drill one of my injured teammates asked me why we didn't do fun drills like this. At first I was going to answer something flip like we don't have time, or a coach chooses not to but it really comes down to intensity and focus. The Berkeley girls were so determined and dedicated in their runs and tackles, they were getting something out of it. The Santa Cruz girls weren't learning from their mistakes, they weren't adjusting to the drills. Yea it's not an answer, we definitely need to mix it up more, it's just frustrating that their fundamentals were so much better then ours =p (granted they practice 3x as much as us). There was a scrimmage which went fairly well considering we were still working out a number of kinks, like being a line in defense, scrums were miserable (but an improvement from practice, and our rucks were ornamental to non-existent. The positives of the game were: our backs are lethal when they have the ball, we started winning rucks in the second half (by over committing but whatever), our first pod could win it's own ball (another improvement compared to pre-season). Overall it was a massive step up for the slugs and were in the lead for almost all of the 2nd half until their fitness beat out our tired rookie forwards and scored 2 tries at the end.

Forwards had a few goes..

Some unsupported but great back breaks

And a sick line cut by our fly led to a try

here's the match report from pelicanrefs.com:

UC Santa Cruz women 24 – CALIFORNIA 34 Referee: Mike King
A brilliant day for a social match overlooking the Monterey Bay on the hill at UC Santa Cruz. The contest was preceded by an innovative skill session mentored by the combined coaching staffs. A mixture of experience and rookie enthusiasm took the pitch, with a battle between 2 balanced teams. The contest was not decided until 2 long tries by Cal near the end of regulation.

There's more exciting news that I'll post later in the day, like our game against Chico and my first meeting with the All Blues but holla I got to go get a job! (and buy food at costco)

Grown Up Rugby

2009-01-02T22:58:00.000-08:00

I've kinda been dragging my heals lately...I'm still getting over the fact that I'm really...no really...done with school and adulthood is slapping me across the face. Ok not yet but I can see it coming like being pinned at the bottom of a ruck and seeing a cleat come down on your face in slow-mo. Or when you see a girl stiff arming you from a mile away but you're...ok I'm stalling. I still need to pack up. Move. Get a job. Heal my hip. Get insurance. Play rugby again! Ok somewhere in between all that I have to balance my body again and yknow, relearn how to walk =p. Figure out how to have a long distance relationship, get certified in computer crap, practice design work, build a website for my parents restaurant, fix the car, find friends in the bay, inspire the kids to get through school not just drink...oh and somehow teach them to be upbeat and dream and hope. Get over having to give up my cat. Live with a dog. Live under some families roof that is not my own. Live life as an adult. Deal. Do better. Improve. Ignore the fact that everything is crazy expensive, there are no jobs, and the niggling sensation that this may be the beginning of the end....(see this is the crap you have to deal with being a politics major...)

Right. This blog is about rugby...I'm sorry I forgot.

I'll try and focus in on that more in my next post. It's interesting because the east coast has finally made an official petition to have D1 final 4s and the national championship match on their side of the country. Traveling costs are ludicrous, we've certainly benefited from having the finals in our backyard but I kinda feel like weather, facilities, and community trump the day. I don't really give a shit where you have Elite 8s (as long as its not New Mexico again) but really for the time of year, why not Stanford. I agree with one of the comments on erugby...it's just worth it to have it there as an experience for the players and the fans. Yea penn state (and trust me penn state and navy are the only teams with a valid weight cause they're there year after year) can complain about not having enough fans but I've been on that field and won, I've been on that field and lost. When you're on the pitch, you don't notice if the crowd is for you or against you, you're just proud that there's so many people there to watch you play! Yea it sucks to travel and to lose..but trust me you won't give a shit about the money if you win. Stanford is a great place to host the championship, it builds that experience, bay area press have routinely given it multiple page complementary articles (unlike (@&# New Mexico). I know I'm rambling but here's the gist...at Stanford you're drawing in two powerhouse teams and fan bases in addition to traveling fans, I'd rather win or lose in front of people then feel that no one is watching and no one cares.

Women's Rugby Footage?! On the web!? No Way!

2008-12-27T15:18:00.000-08:00

Thank you Agent of Change for Good! Whoever you are you're a frickin angel! Anyone who is a fan (or coach, admin, ref, or involved player) of the women's game knows it's nigh impossible to watch women's matches online. Often we have to sustain ourselves on poorly shot clips and snips on youtube...which is nice for recruitment but not as effective as a teaching tool. With how few Eagle matches there are you'd think interested women's clubs could request DVDs of the match. Utilize bitorrent to quickly share matches and make the material available because frankly streaming is not the most sustainable option. I know I'm just griping...*sigh* especially since all I can do is sit on my ass. Ugh. Well here's some videos of the Women's Eagle 7s squad in Dubai

there are more on the AgentofChangeforGood's channel

What else...I only got to go to one practice and it was more of a conditioning practice for Belmont Shore's men's team. Only two of our girls went but luckily (and unfortunately) it was two of the fittest girls on our team, and while I'm getting pretty antsy being on my ass all the time I'm pretty glad I didn't have to get through this practice. To start out with there were about 35-40 guys who showed up (I guess all their eagles were at a camp somewhere) and it was an amalgam of Belmon Shore, CSULB, and Belmont's youth program. So they started out running on this long thin strip of grass (about 100m in length) with numerous palm trees every couple of meters. The drill started with a group of about 3-4 running through the course with a ball popping the ball to each other. The ballcarrier would run up to a palm tree, transition the ball to the proper arm to create separation, turn, step out of the line to create space and pop it to a person communicating and coming with speed from depth. Pretty simple drill right? But I really liked how they used an organic drill (the ballcarrier would just choose a route to a palm tree and the support had to react and reposition themselves to keep the ball flowing in bounds. It was also nifty that the opponent was something physically there and easily visible from ones peripheral vision and not just a cone or something. The players were instructed to really burst through the drill and then jog it back and the coach broke up the drill once or twice to emphasize communication, timing in respect to both the ballcarrier choosing to turn and the support, as well as doing the whole thing at pace. All in all they probably ran the drill about 15-20 times through. One of the important points that their coach finished on was emphasizing the importance of turning on the heat at the end of the drill. Players were apparently slowing down near the end of it and he reminded them that working your way down to the 22m it's the last bit where you have to really turn it on and be more precise! It's the whole red zone bit but I thought it was neat that he was reminding them of a meta-purpose within the drill. After this the guys were nice and sweating (they had done some sort of four corners but we had gotten lost on the way there and had missed it) and he split them up into forwards and backs mostly in order to group them by approximate fitness levels. The forwards ran 8 sets of steep beach stairs two at a time and then switched to what the backs were doing which was 25 or so sand sprints from the water up to the sidewalk. After this the two groups got back together, got a quick pep talk and then did a grueling 16 hill runs. Now I know you're thinking I mean hill sprints or something...no...I mean hill runs of about a half a mile or so each...it took the fastest super league (non-eagle) players about 45+ minutes to finish, the rest of the pack finished in about 60. Yeesh! Mo finished about 8th but I know she was killing her knee and the other girl we brought (a rookie) managed to finish about 4th from last (and only because she skipped the beach sprints and ran cross-country in high school). Long story short I'm glad I missed that one, at least in my current couch potato state (thanks doc!).

From a coaching perspective it was pretty neat some of things men's coaches can do. If the coach was talking, everyone shut the fuck up and listened. If the coach called on you, you answered. He was allowed to crack a joke, you were not. Some guy was late and he reamed them in front of people, he made sure they knew that he noticed. After the run he gave 'em a pep talk (they have their first league game right after the holidays) and basically told them they needed to work harder but fuck their teammates who didn't show up for holiday practice. It was neat that he just said it outright that he'd bench those that didn't come, no excuses no bullshit. He called out player's names who he noticed were pushing it in the run (and not just the people who finished first), it was cool seeing them perk up after being mentioned. Overall the coaches were extremely supportive and positive during the drills and especially through the run. Telling them to push it, but lots of positive feedback as well. I dunno it was a neat, efficient practice. There was the head coach, an assistant coach, two managers and a trainer as well as parents of the two youth players on hand. Talk about nifty!

Oh and I also got to talk to the assistant coach about defensive organization drills. They teach a three position defense as well but they emphasize pushing out rather then in. His point was that fitter teams benefit from an outward pushing defense and that was their reason for doing so. Their positions were post, nine, and 1st receiver. Post pushed up and took the inside channel or anyone running back inside, nine protected from a nine drift and pushed up and out, and 1st receiver took the same sort of line and took the (duh) first receiver. His basic drill for teaching this was having a set of halfbacks and some forwards on offense and then have the defense in groups away from the drill, do some fitness like a couple of push-ups and then run into the drill and set up a defense. As players get more comfortable with the drill he sets up a couple stations spread out on the field so they have to run in and set up a defensive line, come up, then retreat backwards, reset, come up, then run to yet another station and repeat. Like the All Blues defense he stressed filling in on the weak side first, going post weak then post strong then 9 weak 9 strong then 1st w and 1st s. Oh and I got clarification that when the defense needs to put more people weakside posts don't really move, people on the strong side (not p,9,1) run behind the line and reinsert themselves on weak side when necessary. I know this is a confusing way to put things but we really really really need some defensive organization so I'm just writing down my notes and kind of comparing and contrasting. He was a bit harder to understand then the main coach and he was probably unsure about how much I understood about rugby. He also mentioned that grubber kicks are really effective against centers who run up aggressively in defense. Which I thought was odd because it would seem like fullback position would also be a factor in that sort of calculation. The gist of it was Belmont Shore a top super league men's team uses the same three position defensive organization off of the breakdown as the All Blues except they push outwards where the ABs push in. So it'll be interesting to see what UC Berkeley does (UC Santa Cruz's season).

Oh well. This has been a long winded post. It's always fascinating seeing how different coaches coach. Well I'll be moving to the bay and there are a number of phenomenal coaches in the area, hopefully I'll be able to catch practices with Kathy Flores, Alex Williams, Ellen Owens, Griff, Mary T, and others. This should be an interesting year =] Now lets just heal up this hip! Two more weeks and we'll see!

Rugby Short Films

2008-12-13T14:49:00.000-08:00

Seem to be popping up everywhere with the end of the quarter.

Like this vid from UVA

Right, so I'm waiting on Wednesday to see the specialist and if need be get surgery in the two week window where I still have health insurance. Alright. Wish me luck.

Actually, I broke my hip

2008-12-11T21:37:00.000-08:00

Yeah. Got the X-rays and I have a fracture on my hip (socket). Yup. (@#(&#*@()* I'll find out more on Wednesday and I'm praying to @(*#&@#(*& that I just have to rest it. I can't afford surgery and my student insurance drops me at the start of January. Obviously no insurance packet will pick up the tab for an existing injury (or not for 6 months) so if I need pins and crap I'm fucked. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Well at least my parents know (and my mother is freaking out about the money (and not me) sooo I'm going to have a pleasant break...I get to work on my resume and try and get a job...with a BROKEN HIP. Awesome! Like I'm not already the worst candidate ever. *sigh* expect more depressing crap as my life spirals down the drain. Please note that I'm not actually this emo but putting up with all the people in my life who are is forcing me to be emo here. Ugh. PS it's weird when your LAU representative friends you on facebook. Really...it is. Wish me luck anyhoo.

Probably not a fracture

2008-12-08T17:39:00.000-08:00

and most likely I just did some major soft tissue/muscle damage to the area that stabilizes my hip. So it's just a waiting game between rest (which I suck at doing...all I do is sit on my ass UNTIL I get hurt and then I'm crutching around like a spastic 11 year old), ice, and arnica until my check up on Thursday. Joy. On the plus side I've written the last essay of my undergraduate career (and am only one bullshit horror film final away from being done with this shit!) Yea I just need some rest, I pulled an all nighter last night killing two essays with one jittery 4am session. Now I just got to remember to stop leaving my (@*&# cell phone in places I can't easily reach it (and the crutches).

Sweet! I might have dislocated my hip. Yes. My hip.

2008-12-06T19:17:00.000-08:00

Isn't that cool?? It's only finals week, right before I move out of my house, have to visit the fam....alright alright I know I've already given the long list before but j@#@# c@#@Qt of all the luck! Hopefully it's nothing major but I'll find out on Tuesday. Until then I don't know what to do. Ice, rest, Ice, rest, arnica, Ice, rest. Ugh. I wish I knew what it was...it was just a bunch of snaps in my hip region/side of my leg when I went down in a tackle (my stupid fault looking for the offload in a scrappy scrimmage). I knew something wasn't right but it didn't hurt that bad and I tried to walk it off but my legs were super shaky from the adrenaline. After taking a walk I started to feel it more and my leg just felt like dead weight that was pulling my leg out of it's hip socket. Basically my leg just feels like it's falling off so um I'm just figuring dislocation. I can walk if I severely limit my range of motion but I can't take stairs or lift my leg vertically without the "falling out of its socket uncomfortable gross and ghostly sensation". Erm. So. I hope it's alright. If anyone has any ideas I'd love for you to comment. This sucks but such is life. Maybe I'll actually write my last two essays...heh...

Wrapping it all up.

2008-12-06T08:32:00.000-08:00

My senior seminar final is over. One class down, two to go. It's really just small things now...8 page paper aside (it wouldn't be bad but I've run out of things to discuss in the class). I have about a week after Wednesday to get my shit clean and packed, fix the car, say goodbye to my cat, and move. Bleh. The list gets shorter and I wish it wouldn't. It's weird leaving my family here at UCSC, the team and others. We had an Olympic lifting clinic instead of our normal practice which was fun 'cause I got to hang out with all the kids and learn something new. I did olympic lifting through high school and I never really got it until now. A big thanks to our volleyball coach and OPERS staff for taking there time to help us out on this. I got a nice farewell after practice, heh a 35 odd person group hug...the club has grown so frickin much. Now we just need the infrastructure to adjust to the numbers. It's weird thinking that in a week I'm not going to see these women three times a week...I mean 4 years of habit is gonna be hard to change.

Lots of exciting things are happening locally in rugby land. Our alumni Vanessa Wilson is trying to start a HS team at Santa Cruz High School, the students she works with in Watsonville HS are also interested in starting a rugby team. She's looking for help in that regard so if anyone lives in the south bay area and wants to help out just leave a comment and I can hook you up there. There's so much rugby developing in the South Bay just as I'm leaving it =p ehehe oh well it's all good. The more rugby the better, right? I wish I could help more then I am, I'm just loaning her a few rugby games on dvd.

Berkeley apparently doesn't start up again until February =p at which point I'll for sure have a job and then I get to worry about scheduling conflicts. On the plus side UC Berkeley appears to have a packed calendar so I ought to be able to watch and or participate with somebody. Maybe I can get a UCB gym pass for Christmas...

What else, speaking of fitness it's pretty nifty, we've got a number of girls in the south bay (LA) and I think I can convince them to go train with Belmont over break. The landsharks are doing fitness/light drills with their mens team on Tues-Thurs and hopefully I can convince our kids to go out and train with them. So hopefully a few of them can play 7s with them over summer or something. (I'll be down for two of these practices and I'm looking forward to getting my ass kicked!)

Right, and here's a lovely short film by Jessica Vazquez from Sac State (damnit and I could've been in it too if my car had been working...and yknow...I wasn't terrified of driving). It's an awesome film so check it out.

Losing Home Again...

2008-12-01T14:28:00.000-08:00

On a positive note I'm going to be living with my teammates family in Oakland for a very cheap rate. Which fixes a couple of my problems with one stone...but I've still got a crap load to do. I spent four days down south with the fam which was fairly relaxing despite all the work on my plate but my ride up left at 4:40am this morning...and I went to bed around 12-1am (getting my best friend nice and sauced to make up for missing his wedding). Ugh..I can't believe finals are next week, I'm completely unprepared for my seminar final (plus two papers...which wouldn't be a big deal but....) I still have to fix my car, pack, organize moving, move, write a resume, completely replace my wardrobe, learn how to act like an adult and present myself well, get a job, figure out how I want to improve my education, insurance, taxes, cell phone bills, become an adult. Shit.

Short choppy steps! Also on a nice note I've managed to drop around twenty lbs this quarter (woot I'm now 202...and 5'2")...which is pretty damn good considering it's mostly from improving what I eat (fiber + anti-oxidants + carbs + veggies - bacon - sausage - mayo - sugar). I mean I'm sure I've lost a fair amount of muscle because I've been more of a coach then a player this quarter but my next goal to get firmly under the 200 mark because I'm definitely going to have to lean up and get fit to play for/learn from ze blues.

Other rugby notes...because y'kno this is a rugby blog:

STANFORD women 50 – UC Santa Cruz 17 Referee: Tony Redmond
Stanford 50 (5G, 3T), Santa Cruz 17 (1G, 2T)
A pretty open game played in good spirit. First penalty after 22 minutes and no more than 8 in the entire game, the majority in the last 20 minutes after players lost their shape through tiredness, which is to be expected at this stage of the season. Stanford scored 34 unanswered points in the first half as they were faster and more controlled at the breakdown, which led to a nice supply of quick ball that their backs made full use of. Stanford scored first in the second half and then went to sleep to allow Santa Cruz to score three times (starting with an intercept try) before they finished off with a last minute score to reach the half century.

Speaking of the Stanford match...I did my usual snooping about and found the professional pictures of the match and gee whiz...biased or not (they were taken by a Stanford Faculty) they were pretty humiliating to go through. Out of curiosity I pulled out all the pictures where our players were attempting to tackle their ball carriers and there were about 71 pictures of missed tackles. Yeeeesh...I know what we're doing on Tuesday...

Also from the week before Kathy Flores seems to be making her presence felt in the collegiate league with her new team getting some pretty high complements from the refs (despite and in light of some favorable but low-scoring matches against established semi-final D1 finishers UC Davis)

UC DAVIS MINI-TOURNAMENT Referee: Bjorn Stumer
Arriving at Davis' Pioneer Park expecting a match between UC Davis Women and St. Mary's, I was pleasantly surprised that what was on tap instead was a mini tournament between Davis' A & B sides, St. Mary's, and USF.

On tap, four 30-minutes mini-match, and a 20-minute one to close the proceedings.

UC Davis A-Side vs. St. Mary's 15-0. The Davis ladies just too strong for a St. Mary's team which, though well drilled and committed, is obviously rebuilding. Three unconverted tries by Davis and no score for St. Mary's.

UC Davis A&B Sides combined vs. USF 0-0. If you lamented the fact that the USF ladies have long advertised for a coach, fret no more. One Kathy Flores (of World Cup & Eagles fame) came to their rescue, and the results were immediately apparent. Although the USF ladies are a new and inexperienced side, they are the ones to watch in the near future. A sturdy pack, and a great back line helped them keep Davis at bay. Much back & forth, but no score.

Another UC Davis amalgam & USF. USF seemed to improve as the day went by. Their pack grew in effectiveness, and their backs dazzled with their runs and their tackling. USF 5 - Davis 0. The score could have been higher if the USF ladies had passed a bit more.

St. Mary's vs. UC Davis B Side. St. Mary got the best of Davis on this one. Plenty runs, and much tackling. The close score reflects the closely matched skills of the two teams. Final Score: St. Mary 5 - Davis 0

St. Mary's - USF 5-5. USF continued to surprise as, for a new side, they play with skill and panache. This last match was an abbreviated one, with two 10 minutes halves. The first half saw a try scored by each side with no conversions. With a couple of minutes from to go in the second half, with the agreement of both coaches, I ended the match. This due to a collision between two of the St. Mary's ladies. In 35 years of Rugby I have never heard the sound of two heads hitting as hard as on this occasion - a sound like the throwing of a coconut against the wall. Both ladies went down and were assessed by a doctor on the sidelines. A visit to the emergency room was recommended for both, even though they were on their feet, albeit groggily. Spectators reported to have heard the sound of the collision clear across the whole length of the pitch. My best wishes to both players!

In spite of this frightening episode, this was a glorious day. Beautiful weather, committed sportswomen playing hard, and with their customary good behavior. A goodish crowd on tap, and fun for all."

Alright so hopefully I'll be able to get in contact with some Davis players and get the lowdown on this suddenly competitive hoedown (yea that was cheesy) here.

Oh and the Davis Double Deckers did it again and won the Chico Holiday Classic, beating out UC Davis 44-0(who must be tired of playing them by now) and SLO 34-0 for the win. You can tell that the DDDs are itching at the trigger to take on the Pac Coast league coming this fall (or spring...I really ought to have someone explain the women's senior schedule cause it sounds confusing as hell). While I'm on that note I really should get on finding out when the All Blue practice is in January...

Hmm speaking of joining up and recruiting...it's kind of mondo frustrating that Berkeley hasn't updated their website in ages...I mean...you'd think that winning the National Championship would be a cause for updating your site right? I mean even just the heading...2007 nat champs...it's one digit change and it's 2008 champs..*sigh* oh well. Seemingly in direct contrast you have NY, which (I don't check up often, but) always seems to keep their stuff up to steam publicity wise...and here's nifty new recruiting video they put out (ok I think it's a little hokey...I mean they throw every buzzword and the kitchen sink out there but there's some gloss to it) but NY always seems to win the team unity contest (but maybe that's just the view from across the nation)

One final note...did you know that using your knee or heel to quick tap the ball is illegal? Doing so results in a scrum on the mark with the put-in (duh) to the other team. Yup. Now you know.

A break from resting...

2008-11-25T15:12:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while I get curious as to why people visit my site. Since k-train is about the only one who comments on my blog I really have no clue other then checking out the referral page which basically shows what (weird and wonky thing) that people searched in order to pull up my site. More often then not it's some peculiar mish mash of phrases that google smushes together as a result for some especially odd search queries. One thing that's encouraging is the number of really odd search terms are far outweighed by fairly relevant ones, which is cool 'cause it implies that it might actually be useful for something. Here's a list of some from the last couple of weeks...(and no...none of them have beat "welsh gang bang" from the first year that I started this blog) So without further ado here is a list of randomly selected searches (excluding those searching for really boring stuff like...ykno...game results and such) in addition to my lovely commentary track:

mouth-guard pushups discipline (sometimes you just wonder what kinky crap people are looking for)
rugby and stereotypes(this came up a few times...maybe someone is writing a paper?)
how many times is a scrum won against the head(I don't know...how many licks does it take to finish a tootsie pop?)
chico davis(I'm glad my blog comes up SECOND when you search "chico davis"...this doesn't say anything about the area I swear)
hangover blackouts(so they checked a rugby blog...of course)
rugby hooker in college (woo +1 points)
Laura Cabrera rugby November 08 (*gasp* I might have included useful information for once)
rugby mmo(and I thought I was nerdy, someone apparently wants to go online and play rugby with people all over the world...instead of doing it in real life)
my cheekbone hurts(pobrecito! Ask a trainer not a hooker)
tina best alumni (?? It wouldn't be weird but it was searched in some Slavic version of google)
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN AN UNTOUCHED THROW-IN ENTERS THE THROWER'S GOAL FOR NEBRASKA (I don't know, sounds like soccer which means bzzzzzzzzt wrong sport)

Alright, this concludes my helpful little section...where all of your random ass questions can be answered...even if they are ridiculously off topic and I don't understand why you even clicked on my blog...

I'm stressed and sick and about to be homeless again.

2008-11-25T11:06:00.000-08:00

The long story in a very short amount of time. UC Santa Cruz scrimmaged a B side Stanford and lost 50-17. It wasn't all that bad, but it wasn't exactly good either. Territory wasn't that bad of an issue but possession killed us. It was hard to watch from the sidelines as our defense (if it had applied a modicum of pressure) could have helped enormously. While scrums were initially fairly steady, our hooker had issues getting the ball back in the second half and our put-ins were being driven back eliminating any possibility of a platform (rucks were a lost cause). Stanford did a good job spreading the ball wide and simultaneous tiring out our pack and creating massive overloads (which they often didn't end up exploiting). It was surprising the sheer amount of knock-ons they had during the first half (that was about the only kind of infringement in the whole game). The three Santa Cruz tries came from our backs. The first was an intercept try, the second by...well I didn't see it but someone told me it was from exploiting a break in their defense, and the third a score on the outside thanks to an overlap. Eh lots of other stuff happened but I have a cold and I'm going to move on. Yea I'm sick. It sucks. I'm stressed 'cause my landlord was layed off and he's moving back in early January so I have to pack out before them. I get out of finals on dec 10 then go home dec 17 and won't be back till the very end of december. Leaving me precious few days to repack my life and move it up to Oakland IF I find a place (NOW) to live and WORK all this DURING finals. Ahhhhhhhhhahaha! Yea and I have a brainsucking deathcold and I can't think. Soooo real life is kicking my ass right now and I'm going to take a nap.

Fun at Flanker

2008-11-20T20:23:00.000-08:00

My shoulder has been feeling fine all week so I joined in on practice today. Fun stuff, did some forwards work and while the scrum wasn't great, it was holding up a lot better then it was on Tuesday. We ran a full XV vs XV which was fun as hell. Definitely was sloppy and our pack still needs to work together as a unit but it went alright. Ack I think I saw my first broken nose, one of our flanks face planted into someone else...that was pretty rough. Oh so I went in at flank which was magnificently fun and made a number of plowing runs (it's just so damn easy when you aren't grunting away in the front row). Anyhoo captains were elected, field captain is Rebecca "Becca" Rozo-Marsh (#9*), forwards cap is Kari "Lenny" Lentz (#8*) and backs cap is Rosie "Jersey" Chesney (#10*). I'm planning on sending them a packet so they can really review the laws of the game/memorize the damn hand signals. I may be living with one of my rookies family...interesting....hopefully we don't get killed too bad at Stanford ('cause it looks like I'm meeting them there...which is bad timing...with them seeing their daughter play rugby for the first time 'n all). Oh and our prop decided to remix a familiar standard with an operatic version rewritten as "The pitch is alive with the sound of scrummaging!!!"

Isn't it a great picture...now we just need her to redo it in a jersey and perform it before games (what's great is she really is a classically trained opera singer)

alright updates on my life situation and much much more coming up (aren't you excited)

Feeling nerdy!

2008-11-19T14:21:00.000-08:00

Yea this post doesn't really have a point...we've got a match against stanford this sunday. Our scrum was creaking at practice but since I was out (and plenty of folks were chattering away with the forwards) I decided to watch the backs practice receiving kicks and counter-attacking. I think I'll be ready to practice by Thursday, my shoulder/neck feels alright. Luckily I don't have to play on Sunday..heh who recently beat St Mary's 126-0. Stanford also recently lost to the Davis Double Deckers 44-19 (not to be confused with UC Davis) a strong women's D1 senior club (but new to the scene). What else...oh I've been learning to program in small basic (a language developed to teach CHILDREN how to program...) and I've had a lot of fun with it. Not surprising my first program relates to rugby. Here's a screenshot of it.

Isn't it spiffy? Updates on the UCSC vs Stanford match to come. And hopefully I get a house I'm interviewing for!

Niggling Neck Injuries

2008-11-16T18:04:00.000-08:00

are never a good thing. It ends up when I smashed up my face at scrum by the sea I also did in my neck. I didn't really feel it on the day of the tournament but I've definitely been feeling it all week and it's not been pleasant. I can't really tell what triggers the sharp excruciating pain but it seems to be when I lean my head back and tilt it a bit...somewhere in my right shoulder/neck. It's getting slightly better but I think I'm going to pull myself out of practice...which stinks but yea, there's no reason to hurt myself in pre-season. We have a game this coming weekend against Stanford but I doubt I'll be in it (time to really blood the rookies). Eh what else...Japan beat the US MNT!! That so makes my day! Um and Blondie's back so hooray for Saturday's a Rugby Day. If anyone has any advice on my neck I'd love to hear it...I've never had neck pain like this in my life but I don't have the cash to waste my time/money at my school's health center (which has mis-diagnosed me like 5 million times and charges up the ass). OH! That's the awesome news that I forgot! Our team might have trainers! We might ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO USE OUR SCHOOLS TRAINERS!!! We've never been able to do that in all five years I've been at this damn school! How awesome is that...we can finally have injuries evaluated by someone who actually gives a shit and stop compounding injuries through ignorance. And it starts next quarter. @(#(&@#(*@#&*(@*(&#@#*&(!!!!

And the All Blues for the win!

2008-11-13T14:20:00.000-08:00

First off, duh, I have to say that the All Blues won the National Women's Club Rugby Championship. So hat's off to them! They beat NY 25-17 in what is reported to be a rather awesome match. I don't have the roster for who was in the match but a lot of it seems similar to the squad I got to see in action.

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.

A Rougher...Longer Week

2008-11-02T14:22:00.000-08:00

Yup one guess why I haven't posted in a while. That's right. Midterms! And me procrastinating...a lot. So much so that I can't even write one lousy post to inform you that I'm being lazy and procrastinating. Eghhhhh. Anyhoo I need to get back to studyin...ah hell who am I kidding...procrastinating so I'll have to post after Tuesday. Yup. Updates on the camp, slugfest being cancelled, the rookies progress, NAWIRA 7s, the Women's Club post-season, and run-ins with ruggers around Santa Cruz. This and much much more...as soon as I can force myself to write this @(*#(*@#&(*#@(*& paper!

A Long Rough Week

2008-10-17T22:42:00.000-07:00

I'm finally getting back into being in school...doing those great little things like reading occasionally and participating in class and occasionally thinking. Practice has been doing swell...we're down to about 25 rookies or thereabouts which is a lot easier to handle...relatively speaking. We've gotten into contact but not positional stuff...or rucks really...erm yea tomorrow should be interesting. They're fairly comfortable with contact and we worked them into the "try dot" drill (two players, one gets the ball, they both have to run around a cone and the ball carrier tries to score on the opposite starting point while the defender attempts to tackle) which is always a fun one. Intensity is improving but handling fundamentals fluctuate a lot...inconsistent passes etc. But duh they've had like six practices. The ABs are holding their annual Hit Like a Bear clinic and yea we'll see what happens at the scrimmage. What else..I'm beat and should hit the sack for tomorrow.

sidenote...I didn't realize the National Women's Club Championship was so close..well hopefully they provide dvds of the matches like last time.

Delayed Match Report on the All Blues vs Minnesota Valkyries

2008-10-08T22:53:00.000-07:00

Partially because I had an irritable night afterwards...ach well I'm letting myself get annoyed lately. Focus on school...rugby is secondary (heh...like I could ever pull that one off).

So the official match scores are up on Hail Pelicus apparently the ABs beat the Mudhens a while back 102-0. Last Saturday the All Blues took out the Valkyries 53-14 in a bruising match. There weren't a whole lot of injuries but you could definitely hear the hits from the sideline. Berkeley had the Valks pretty contained for the first half but as substitutions rolled in for both sides after the half Berkeley's defensive organization definitely suffered. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure Christy Riggenberg scored both tries for the Valkyries.

Berkeley was fielding some familiar stars but not all of them. I'm getting a wee bit better at picking out the squad, Chou was at 1 and Biscuit was tighthead...couldn't tell who was at hooker but she looked familiar..might have been a Cal or Davis alum. It was odd seeing Tina at lock, and one of their flankers used to play for the London Wasps, Street at flank, Blair was 8, Jossy was at 9 and Steph Bruce was at fly. Ruth Bryson was at inside and I think Meagan Verdeyen was at outside. Natalie Marchino at 14 and Ashley English at 15. The roster definitely switched around a lot but yea this is how it was at least for a bit in the first half. The All Blues weren't having their typical rampant backline runs despite seeming to have a speed advantage. Props has to be given to the Valkyrie defense and their scrum for preventing Berkeley from using it as a good platform for attack (which is starting to look like a bit of a pattern). Jossy had a great match at 9, and scored a try off a defensive scrum when she used a perfectly timed hit to jar her opposing scrumhalf's pass, chased down the ball, and touched it down for a try. Berkeley did a good job stripping the valkyrie ballcarriers in the first half leading to a good number of turnovers. Berkeley's outside center also had a tendency of making a few fifty-fifty passes and the ABs pop passes were a little rough in general. Stephanie Bruce made a few great runs and seemed to boss the backline pretty well. Her inside center had made a few rugby league-esque tackles that weren't called. On the Valkyries side they were pretty good at maintaining possession for a good couple of phases when they had the ball but their runs weren't really breaking the gainline and often ended up with a speculative kick and a turnover of possession to the ABs who were all too happy to switch gears and attack. Berkeley wasn't able to counter-ruck as much as they normally do.

On the sidelines there was a good amount of spectators including a number of AB alum which was a cool show of support. I got to talk a bit with Ellen Owens (UC Berkeley's head coach, ex Grizzly U-23 coach) about the somewhat difficult task of pinning down the effects of the new ELVs. Lois Bukowski was also in the stands as well and one of our own alumni whose name is escaping me... who just moved back to the bay and apparently is looking to rejoin the blues. Sidenote I had no idea Laura Cabrera used to be a fly-half! Yea I know I'm just a kid so I'm not privy to all this info that's a duh statement to everyone else. Jen Crouse was also in civvies on the sidelines and Cabrera was patrolling the sidelines with coaching clip in hand. HP from Stanford was there and so was ORSU for part of the match and San Juanita Moreno (3 full caps at outside center u-23 eagle and grizzly and Western Oregon Alumni). Right so overall a good day to be a rugby spectator =]

The ABs played their last league game on Sunday against the Fog beating them 55-5. One of my D2 buddies Georgi Ellis (alumni prop from Cal State Sacramento NCRFU #2) started for the ABs on Sunday which is pretty tight. Long story short uh All Blues won the PCRFU (duh) ORSU takes 2nd seed and the Mudhens take third.

Other matches: ORSU beat the Valkyries 46-15...dunno how competitive/serious the match was. ORSU also beat the fog 45-12. Yea Treasure Island saw a helluva lot of rugby last weekend.

Anyways...shit that was a lot to talk about. Erm...what else...this weekend the Davis Double Deckers are hosting a round robin at Davis with Chico State, Sac State, and the Sacramento Amazons. The Berkeley All Blues are hosting their annual 'hit like a bear clinic' at treasure island on Oct 18th 9-4 and hell yes we'll be there for $25 bucks in advance it's a steal (but they haven't posted a site so we can't sign up yet). We'll be hosting our own tournament on Nov 1st. Scrum by the Sea the weekend after that...our match secretary is giving us our schedule tomorrow at practice so we'll see.

Ugh that leads me to shit...so I kinda screwed up and overstepped my self imposed boundaries on my involvement with the team this quarter. I'm only here for a quarter and I'm attempting to stay as far away as possible from any sort of decision making or advisory role when it comes to vet stuff. I'm here to coach rookies and keep my skills sharp "." I've done a fairly good job shutting up but this shit is hard! It's their team now, they can do whatever they like....argh fuckit I'm not going to discuss it. It just sucks being a politics major where you're TRAINED to identify and question the origins of policy making. But this turns me to a happier subject.

So tomorrow will be practice #4 and we're still getting around 40 rookies out to practice...maybe it's down to 35 but still that's a shitload. And the pace is still going well...we introduced light contact with pads yesterday. Needless to say I'm stoked. Our lines are looking serviceable, everyone is picking stuff up fairly quickly and integrating well with the rest of the team. There are some exciting ass kids in this bunch and fun folk as well. Had a film night team dinner on Tuesday and played the most ridiculous name ice-breaker ever (mwahahahaaaa I know 9/10 of the rookies names). Ohh! The new coach from ORSU. Apparently she played her college games for Reed, played for ORSU, then moved to Connecticut and coached a bit there (her names Myca? Mica?). Seems nice, loud, clear. Yup. Danni my old prop showed up yesterday and was helping instruct as well. So four forwards coaches...erm so I might slip into more of a player mode which is fine with me.

What else...Women Eagles posted a cool new set of videos interviewing different national team players on "what it means to be an Eagle"

with Jamie Burke:

Ashley English:

and Emily:

Er lastly there's been a lot of chit chat about the format of PCRFU playoffs because Utah is finally gonna be involved this year (or so they say). Initially the PNRFU were going to get two seeds and NCRFU #2 was going to get bumped out so Utah would have a spot. Now it looks like there is going to be a challenge match between PNRFU #2 and NCRFU #2 hosted by PNRFU over the spot which seems to be fair especially because NCRFU still holds the top PCRFU seed spot (and national ranking). But yea when it comes to UCSC's post-season stuff it's really up to these young guns. So as it stands...

PCRFU Playoffs

Host: NCRFU (natural rotation - NC '09, U '10, PN '11)
Dates: April 3/4, 2009 (Fri/Sat)
Venue: TBD
Point of Contact: TBD
PC MC: TBD
------------
If PN2:
Match A: NC1 v PN2
Match B: U1 v PN1
----------
If NC2:
Match A: NC1 v U1
Match B: NC2 v PN1

++++++++++++++++++++++++
Match C: Loser A v Loser B
Match D: Winner A v Winner B
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Winner D = PC 1
Loser D = PC 2
Winner C = PC 3
Loser C = PC 4

Lastly I've been checking out my options for moving to the Bay. North/West Oakland or Emeryville looks to be my best bet balancing the price/security issue. I'd be jumping into some deep waters for a kid used to the beachy (heh in more ways then one) parts of LA but I think I'd have enough of a support network. BLeh my paycheck was waaaaaaay smaller then I had hoped (they took out damn near 500 bucks in taxes) but I ought to have enough (if I don't have to fix my damn car...at this point maybe I could convince someone to just steal it...). Right...well I'd join the Blues...duh. I heard some rumor from Ellen that Vallejo is trying to start a women's team but it's late and this has taken the better part of an hour so I'll look it up later.

Two Practices Down, A New Coach? and a Showdown on Treasure Island

2008-10-03T23:15:00.000-07:00

The last two practices I've been working almost exclusively with the rookies. Doing the same old shit but things are running smoother (kinda). There's still about forty-five girls coming out. We'll see what this number inevitably shrinks to. Lots of talented rookies, and for the most part a good attitude and work rate. Everyone seems to be picking up the drills fairly well. I'm still suffering the ill effects of this cold but hopefully I'll be able to kick it. I got new running shoes for everyday life and they're a vast improvement to what I was wearing before. Apparently a woman showed up after Thursday's practice asking if she could help out coaching (people are saying that she's used to coach ORSU) obviously this would be a frickin amazing boon but the details are sketchy 'cause I wasn't there and I can't get any concrete answers about the incident from anyone. I'll definitely update as the details come in. Kickoff for tomorrows game is at 12:30 and I'm totally going to be their for the All Blue vs Minnesota Valkyrie game, it's at SFGG field. Sidenote, apparently there's a collegiate round robin oct 11 in sac I don't think we were invited but I'll try and post more details about it later. Yup that's it. Short but sweet.

Some quick **edits***. We'll see how much of a match this turns out to be...I did a little research in the morning and San Diego recently beat the Valks 31-26, a close match and the Surfers are no push-over team but yea...this is going to be against the All Blues. Also while the Valkyries traditionally hold a strong spot in the national seeding they kind of squandered their #3 seed last year by losing 17-7 against ORSU (a team that the All Blues beat last weekend). The Valkyries will be having a rematch against ORSU on Sunday while the ABs will play the Fog but I won't be able to catch those match ups. Hm apparently the Valkyries played the Twin City Amazons on the same day and won 19-12 which is a better sign. Did I mention I dislike the midwest's TAU site (I couldn't find a single mention of women's senior club rugby)? Granted I wasn't super searching but it should be easier then that. Also in the lead up to this match the Valks beat Chicago North Shore in an a-side match 53-0 (Chicago having some standout eagle 7s players like Pam Kosanke and Teena Mastrangelo). I checked the Valkyries official roster and it was kind of odd 'cause their website lists Barb Fugate as their coach while their cipped roster lists Martha Daines and Jane Tierney (also listed on their website) and their site seems rather up to date so I don't know the story behind that one. They have 26 rostered players like Kris Zdanczewicz (World Cup Standout flanker and duh fully capped Eagle) Christy Ringgenberg (current captain of the world cup bound Eagle 7s squad). There are probably more on the team but I'm just a little norcal journalist (*cough* *cough* more like starstruck fan) so I don't know the ins and outs of midwest rugby. Oh it should be noted that the Surfers participated in last years Sweet 16s (by beating belmont who in turn had taken the spot from Austin) and lost in the first round as well to the Atlanta Harlequins (the only D1 team in the south). Just for sake of comparison the ABs have 45 rostered active players. Alright that's enough number running for today.

Quick Tangents and Long Meetings

2008-09-29T13:35:00.000-07:00

1. SO several weeks ago I played a quarter of a match against the All Blues. As previously mentioned I got the snot knocked out of me in scrums resulting in a number of reset scrums. After the game a tall ridiculously fit lock gave me a chiding for all the discomfort I was causing in the Berkeley scrum (discomfort from resetting a million and a half times). I didn't recognize her but she was definitely an elite level athlete so I just tucked the incident away into memory for a later date. Long story short I think it might be Chris Trucano of the Twin City Amazons. Which would be frickin awesome...er to be uh kinda insulted by the...alright anyhoo moving on.

2. the ABs won against ORSU up in Portland, Davis Double Deckers beat Fog, and the ABs are playing a friendly against the Minnesota Valkyries which I'm totally stoked on going to see (on sat) and will play a league match against fog on Sunday. Fog will also be playing ORSU on Saturday.

3. ugh the meeting with the rookies was poorly organized and dragged on. Oh well a couple of people were stoked.

First Practice and New Coaching Roles

2008-09-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

It's a weird experience overstaying one's visit. Last thursday was the first practice of the season (vets only) and there were 13 of us standing out there. We had a few missing but shit almighty if it wasn't weird waiting for the senior corps to roll around half an hour late. All the people who just frickin ARE rugby to me...it was bizarre. The chemistry of the group is different, more serious, less joking around. Eh I guess it had to go in that direction but it's damn weird seeing so many serious faces on the first day of practice in preseason.

We did some lines, some rucks, poaching drills, pop tackling drills and ended with a wonky fitness thinga-ma-bob [(sprint, push-ups, sprint, sit-ups,)x2 +hill sprint + run through sand + kick accurately + bear crawl back - from where the ball hit the dirt]. Uh yea. Since there were 13 people I was kinda odd man out and I talked to my coach about helping coach in fall because it's not really set if they want me to play or not. (Two of our vet props won't be playing for fall and we don't necessarily have a hooker either) but obviously it'd be advantageous to be safe and train someone for each open spot. Conversely it might be helpful to have structure + a vet in the front row. So we'll see how it plays out. Plus I tweaked my shoulder somehow so I'm resting that up.

Coaching-wise I'm trying to make an effort to give specific tips to improve technique issues rather then trying to convince players of the importance of doing or not doing an action. Basically I'm a pair of extra eyes.

I've done a bit of outside fitness lifting and such on Wednesday and then played a round of basketball. Worked on Friday and tossed thousands of boxes (weeee that burned the hell out of my arms). Didn't really work out this weekend 'cause it's the first weekend I've had free basically all summer. I'm stoked for my classes so far but I've got class right after practice so I'll have to leave early. Dammit oh well. We've got some sort of meeting today with the rookies...dunno what the fucks gonna be said...in fact I don't think anyone does. It's rather frustrating but you gotta give the kids the leash and let 'em run with it. *sigh* Occasionally I don't think they've heard the phrase "If it ain't broke don't fix it". Yea we only got 3rd last year but we've won league the last five, and pac coast the last three years, and had been doing a fairly good job retaining rookies considering the size limits of our club structure. At least learn and consider the previous system before you start tearing it down. *double sigh* One more quarter....

ps fog just posted this with clips of their game against the Davis Double Deckers WRFC

Rugby Recruiting, Stereotypes, Team Structure, and Dues

2008-09-24T08:13:00.000-07:00

First off I've been doing a lot better staying off my computer and keeping active. Yesterday was my last day of work so I made it a race to see how many fix-it tickets I could finish in my half day (14). They were ALL third floor problems *grumble* I hate college 8 kids *in a whiny tone* "ummm so like I bought this shelf can you help me assemble it? " NO! "Ummmmm likeeee sooooo we want a second fridge" ok....go out and buy one! Arghh it's only been three days and they've already screwed the paint job we worked on all summer long. I could complain forever. It's over. Done. Alright new topic...

I only worked a half day yesterday since it was our schools fall festival (where clubs compete with sororities + frats to save their souls jk jk) uh but yea it was personally disheartening to see what my school is transforming into. Ugh where are the hippies!? This is UC Santa Cruz! Where are my smelly vegan hippies at?! Where are my die-hard extreme eco-terrorist political activists?! Where are my spiritually centered sustainable I compost my own crap farming folks? Where are the people who can walk out the door without an hour and a half MINIMUM of makeup + hair??? Where are my sensitive uber-otaku nerds at?! Ykno I don't actually mind the sororities we currently have, they're actually pretty cool and empathetic and it was a little sad that they were falling in with us in agreeing that Santa Cruz is making a turn for the worst. I'm allowed to be a little bitter, I caught a lot of stick today. It sucks promoting a sport where there is no body type and gah @(*#)&@*# it just pissed me off. Yea they're freshmen but c'mon...wake up...you're going to college...being an ignorent asshole just doesn't cut it to be cool. Just some fun sample quotes. "OH Noooooo rugby is too intense *giggle*"...and as they're walking away "sHe'd snap me in half...*heehee* He'd snap me in half" Or how every third guy would be like "women's rugby no thanks *hahaha*" and a couple of guys would say "well if you count as a woman I guess I could play women's rugby". Yea...normally it slides off the back but 4 1/2 hours of that..yea it sucked.

Got a number of enthusiastic rookies but we'll once again see how it'll turn out. Man I wish I could stay another year. But I'll get over it...I'm sure. It sounds exciting this year with more teams in our league. Pre-season should be fun though, we've got a number of good D1 matches lined up (Stanford and Davis for sure) plus scrum by the sea. We had a scrambled meeting that was basically a re-iteration of a meeting that I wasn't invited to. I'm skeptical but uninvolved in the new power-structure. Before last year we never voted for captains. They just stepped up. I'm a politics major...I'm not really down for democracy in all situations. Anyhoo just curious what other collegiate clubs do. (and I'm really doubtful of voting for a captain, field captain especially before practice has even started). MEh. They're club not mine.

I paid dues, 30 bucks for a collegiate player and 20 for Pac Coast Territorial Union. I can't recall what our club dues are but I'm sure I'll be reminded of it sooner rather then later. I want to do a survey/some research to see what kind of dues that the different levels of rugby charge. Breaking down women's senior club to the proposed super league, d1 regionally, and dii. Yea it'll take some footwork and I got distracted looking at the New York Roster...I'm such a sucker for a well maintained web-site.

Important side-note! Alex Williams (Berkeley All Blues Head Coach)is running another one of her collegiate/high school developmental camps early in January. You should read up on Alex William's Rugby Camp and email her on the contacts page to tell her you're interested. I went to this last summer and it was awesome! Meeting players from all over (as well as a number of u-23 eagles preparing for their tour to NZ) and learning from some of the best coaches and players in the nation! Yea just go alright!

Fitness-wise I was pretty drained after opers but I still went through my handling practice. Twenty-five static passes a side (still working on turning my damn shoulders towards the target and passing across the chest). Also worked on 5 dummy and then a back flick pass. 5 Dummy and then that weird 7s pass around + behind your head. Lastly I did fifteen dummy and pass.

Today I'm lifting light weights (gotta work on my hamstring and surrounding muscle) and then a pool workout. And painting our new janky home-made scrum machine...we'll see how it works out. Our old backs coach designed it...ehhhhh....yes...optimism.

Fitness

2008-09-22T20:49:00.000-07:00

will no longer be my enemy. I can do a lot of cool things when I'm fit. I want to be fit so I can have more fun playing rugby. So I'm going to *gasp* spend less time on my computer. I don't want to be the most out of shape player on the team. I want to be able to lead by example. Yep. Heh we'll see how this works out. Well I'm off to get my heart rate up. Tomorrow is my last day of work. OPERS the annual recruit rookie-a-thon is tomorrow. It's lead by the next gen of kids...we'll see what comes out of that. Alright I'm stalling but I want to survey the teams of goffs proposed women's super league and see what their rookie and member dues are. A project for another night.

**Radio Edit** I practiced fifty static passes (splitting them half with my r and l)with my new favorite passing partner (ie the random broken anchored hanging umbrella in my backyard) while chasing and picking the dribbled ball that results from a successful pass (also working on the novel idea of passing across the chest, looking before I pass, turning my shoulders and keeping my hips square ahead, and making sure my follow through is pointing at the target). Got warmed up a bit with a few dynamic stretches then headed off on a twenty minute bike-a-thon changing pace and direction around west side SC. I made two stops to do some circuit training in well lit areas. The first one was just 10 push ups and the second stop was shoulder pressing a rugby ball size hunk of concrete, 2x10 for each arm and 2x10 bicep curls with it. Yea...I did just spend more time describing the exercise then doing the exercise...damnit! *sigh* Whatever it was good to get my heart rate up for thirty minutes. (not that I don't get a workout dragging ladders and furniture (+tools) around an entire college 10 hours a day =p

Berkeley All Blues vs Emerald City Mudhens

2008-09-20T18:08:00.000-07:00

aka starstruck day 2. Well I managed to be less starstruck then the last time I saw an All Blues match and as a result I remembered a bit more about the rugby this time around....granted it helped not getting rocked on the pitch. It was another who's who-fest on the sidelines with Jen Crawford (who has been to 3 world cups and and eagle captain aka Berkeley's super-experienced backs coach with 23 caps), Laura Cabrera (hella experienced eagle), Lisa Butts (current Davis captain? and eagle and world cup reserve hooker/flanker) and more I'm sure.

Wow...even in a team of Berkeley's caliber Blair makes and impact. The way that she targets the binds of players, ducks under tackles, with her pace, power, and work rate she was really part of the lube that kept the ABs ticking over with tries. With Blair in first pod and Street in 2nd the ABs had a powerful attacking platform off of lineouts. Emerald city seemed to hold their own on their own scrums keeping the ABs from using it to its full potential (in the second half the mudhens occasionally got a drive on berkeley but not in time to affect the unleashing of the all blue backs). Ashley English was on the pitch at fullback linking up with Natalie Marchino (for some reason the usa rugby stat site has her under Nathalie...?) at wing for some spectacular tries. The All Blues were doing a great job hitting everything at pace and playing multi-phase rugby. The kicks by both teams were well placed and props has to be given to the Mudhens pack and fullback (who I'll figure out her name eventually) for their tenacity. Near the middle of the second half the mudhens had the ABs pinned in their own twenty-two for a good amount of time, putting them under pressure as their forwards doggedly kept driving the ball to within inches of the tryline. Unfortunately due to an eventual mistake and infringement by the mudhens (can't remember if it was for coming in from the side or diving over the ruck) but the ABs were able to clear the line and the mudhens didn't really get another good scoring opportunity after that.

Injury-wise Stephanie Bruce or Ruth Bryson had to go on for the other but I really have a hard time telling them apart so I can't tell you what was going on with that. One of them made an amazing 60 yard breakaway but was tackled from behind just as she made the tryline and was injured in the process. Chou had to go out when she took a knee to the eye socket at which point Mari Wallace moved to prop and that east coast hooker that I played against at pumpkinfest (Audrie? Something like that) came in at 2. The ELVs didn't really come into play as far as I can see (it's hard to judge whether the added space behind the set piece is really affecting anything) but there was one quick lineout that was done in a spectacular fashion. For the whole game she had been sprinting into the fans to retrieve kicked balls and I thought she was just trying to keep the game moving. Well next thing you know the mudhens take a floating high ball into touch from their half and Marchino is a blur into the crowd taking the ball mid-flight (and nearly taking out a spectator who was stepping forward to catch the ball) and throwing it in rather flat to Ashley English who preceded to open up the unprepared mudhen defense (it was a hair backwards and not where the ball went into touch but behind it...which is why I brought up the ELVs). Apparently the rule only counts if a spectator hasn't touched the ball yet hence her full body dive to prevent the spectator from touching the ball...this kinda sounds like a grey area law but I'll email a ref and post an update if I'm wrong. Oh and street was awesome off of scrums and harrying the opposing scrum-half...the first scrum of the game she wrapped the 9 so fast she was unable to even pass the ball to her backs.

Final Score ABs won a lot to 0. The game was played in two halves and I'll post the official pelican refs score later. The match took place on the goose-poop pitch on Treasure Island.

Oh and I talked to Lisa Butts (2 full caps) after the game to get a bit of a scoop on the new Davis team. Apparently they played an extra third against Berkeley because Sacramento (amazons I assume) canceled a match against the ABs last Sunday. The team was mostly made up of chico + davis alum with some chico state players filling up the ranks. They have a number of u-23 players (grizzlies I think) and they actually held berkeley to 38-0 during the first game and only conceded the rest of the points in the extra third. Berkeley didn't even score a try until the 23rd minute of the match (which after seeing Berkeley in action the last couple of weeks is a pretty mean feat on it's own). Once again a really strong start for a teams first match against last year's national champions (Lisa Butts of course used to play for the Berkeley All Blues and helped them on that road to victory).

Well next week in Norcal Rugby...the ABs are flying up to Portland for a match against ORSU (I assume) and the Davis Double Deckers are playing Fog somewhere in San Francisco! Specific...I know! Hehe anyhoo hopefully I'll be there and I can get a better hold of this new tough team in Norcal women's club rugby.

ps total sidenotes...didn't know that Street (Allyson Hemstreet)and Natalie Marchino are the captains of the All Blues. And rookie dues for the All Blues run $75 bucks and returning vets are ~100+ bucks. Yup.

Getting Schooled and Cleaning up my room

2008-09-19T23:48:00.000-07:00

ALL BLUES 59 – Belmont Shore 7 Referee: Preston Gordon
Assistant Referee: Eric Rauscher

Because SFGG's main pitch is being re-seeded, this took place at the Job Corps field a little further up the island. We kicked off just after 12:30 for 4 20-minute periods with open subs, as requested by the coaches. The opening quarter of the game was fairly even, with both sides working off a little summertime rust. The All Blues did a little better with support play and passing, and ended up with 4 converted tries by halftime. Belmont Shore did well but couldn't quite match their opponents.

The second half was about the same, and the All Blues scored 5 tries, 3 of which were converted. Belmont Shore put one across the line towards the end of the match through some good recycling, and converted it, leaving the scoreline at 59-7 to the All Blues. I think that flatters the winners a bit though - this match wasn't really that lopsided.

This was the first match under the ELVs for everyone on the pitch, myself included. I thought everything went pretty well - the 5 extra meters of space at scrum time seems to create more attacking opportunities. I don't recall many of the others having an impact either way.

Thanks to Eric Rauscher, who showed up to touch judge, or rather, be an assistant referee. He and I stuck around to assist Don with the first half of the SFGG-Greggs match that happened right afterwards. That was a great game (36-32 at the half) and I would have stuck around for the rest of it had I not had family waiting for me. Next week's match should be a cracker!

-pelicanrefs.blogspot.com

yup...I know it's a slow repost...I've been working 60+ hrs a week and yea it's got me all muddled. The game against the All Blues was awesome...I was only in for a quarter but it was so cool playing against the who's who list of world cup players, eagles, and u-23 eagles. Ehehee I know I have issues with being star-struck but it was cool playing against Tina Nesburg, Mari Wallace, Jossy, Street, Chou, Blaire's sister, Vix, and those were the ones I noticed while I was being pummeled to a pulp (hmm seems I know my famous forwards a wee bit better then my backs). Belmont did damn well (before Lenny and I were subbed in) to hold off Berkeley. I was pretty surprised by the number of knock-ons and penalties that the ABs committed and some major credit has to be given to the Landshark defensive pressure which was the cause of a number of these mistakes. A good pre-season friendly for both teams for sure. I gotta say it was an awesome experience being surrounded by so many veteran players and against such a skilled side. Regina Sheck added additional structure and leadership to an already solid and experienced Belmont pack and I can't believe how effortless they made scrumming against the all blues look. Regina played 8 and was our primary kicker in the match and there is more info about her here (Heh and now I can say that I've played with a world cup champion against half the eagle roster).

Long story short I got schooled for the twenty minutes or less that I was on the pitch...for the first couple minutes I was fine, had a few straightforward carries, made a few yards, rucked a bit and that was fine. But lord once we packed down I was toast. I played loosehead and I haven't propped in a full scrum since oooo last fall...and I only do it during rookie tournaments...ehehe. So I held my own for the first two scrums until they realized that I didn't know shit and just started dropping, pulling, barging, holding, and popping me at will. Then I died. Only time in my whole life that I've been chastised by a ref for sucking so much in the scrum. And I quote "If you can't take the hit maybe you shouldn't be out here". Yup. Ouch. I was keeping my side off the ground but I was basically limbo-ing and my spine was doing a stretch-armstrong. I'm in total awe of my opposite number and any prop that can keep the scrum steady while she's doing the things she does (cheers to Brooke and Amber). Wish I knew her name but she wasn't particularly friendly during the match or after...eh...it's kinda a Berkeley thing (which isn't meant in a harsh way but Berkeley tends to be serious + elite and deservedly so).

After the match was pretty fun, got to hang out a bit with the Reddick sisters, Alex from Fog, Georgi Ellis from CSU Sacramento. It was cool 'cause Alex Williams stopped by and said hi (I went to her summer camp last year) and everyone basically assumed that I was playing for Belmont now which is a hard thing to correct when you mumble a lot like I do. Kathy Flores was there as well and it was also super cool to see Miller again (Belmont's forwards coach) heh she's so badass! Heh Kasey, Kate, Shannon, Fuj, Grace...yea I miss Belmont even if I was ridiculously dorky and awkward when I played for them (not that I'm much improved now).

Anyhoo enough sentimentality. Apparently I completely missed that our women's club LAU dissolved and now there's just a pac coast competition. Wonder if they'll still be a TAU playoff...I feel that step always helps prepare our collegiate team to gear up for post-season play and prep us for Elite 8s (I'm only bringing it up because I imagine it serves the same purpose for Women's senior side teams). As goff and a number of other blogs have mentioned that there are two more teams that are trying to settle into the scene and they are Budd Bay out of Olympia, WA and the Davis Double Deckers (which I think I mentioned earlier seems to be a mix of UC Davis alum, chico players, and sac alum...but I'll try and post a roster later in the week). Anyyhoo both teams played a match against a strong side and did fairly well for a brand new club. I can't recall the budd bay match but I'll look it up later. Davis played the All Blues and held it 61-0. Oh and there seems to be a lot of questions about club rugby in norcal and I thought that I'd mention that the Sacramento Amazons seem to have been having issues with dues/admin stuff with Pelican Refs and thus have been in 'poor standing' so that might be why things are going through a bit of a shift.

BLeh...lots of rugby so little time. Apparently rugby magazine is going to be distributed in Barnes & Noble stores around the country as well as college campuses...which is neat and while I don't super like the magazine it's kinda one of those things ya just gotta buy cause it has rugby on it (and actually is about the sport and not about stupid fuck fashion...thank you Ralph Lauren....you didn't invent rugby...*sigh*) I'm going to the Berkeley vs Seattle game tomorrow...no I don't actually know which seattle side it is...but we'll see. Maybe I'll get the guts to do and interview. Meh...probably not seeing that I'm so poorly prepared. Then again if the Berkeley All Blues ever updated their website...............

**UPDATE** womeneagles.com updated their website and expanded their 7s roster. Did you know that there was a women eagles youtube channel? Nope...I didn't either (well kinda but then I forgot about it) Alright that's it goodnight.

Bruised Black and Blue + Controversy

2008-08-30T17:58:00.000-07:00

aka I survived being homeless for a month, subletting in a house of angry vegan serial killer locals, scraped through five weeks of mind numbing summer school, and still managed to protect my few remaining brain cells from the paint fumes that I'm gassed with every day at work. I've lost 14 odd lbs from biking my ass off everyday, managed to find a reasonable place to live in the fifth gnarliest housing market in the US (people are paying 800 for a 10x10 room...1000+ deposits...you can rent a living room for 550 a month plus 800 deposit I'm not shitting you), had to tow my car three times, and finally got enrolled in my senior seminar so I can graduate after fall quarter (FINALLY). Yea...I might just have scraped by another summer, holding on by my teeth and bloody half-torn off fingernails. Ah well, I'm two months from done. Then I have to deal with the real world. Ugh.

So, as much as I like CA it's too damn expensive for me. I've got an old teammate in portland telling me stories about how she's working 20 hrs a week for 10 bucks an hour, getting full benefits, paying 200 a month for rent and living fat as a cat! Now I love avocados, CA coastal weather, and the kickin' culture but frankly I can't stand this shit. I'm thinking about moving to Washington....I could play for the Mudhens/and or seattle or something and it'd be cheaper and coastal and my bff/inside center may be moving up there as well.

Right....so what does this have to do with controversy? Heh...Goff of course! It was an interesting piece. I mean as a pretty longtime reader he hasn't said anything particularly new...it's a mish-mash of his previous editorials whisked together and displayed like tasty carrion to encourage some bloodletting.

Now I'm not going to address it all....hardly...I just want to mention a point, a small personal opinion. Elite level isn't a cure-all for endearing the sport to the whole of the US. It's a significant chunk..yea...but we're going to have to come out with a mix. Developing an exclusive elite cadre of teams doesn't exactly encourage participation and support. I don't see why creating one has to cut the other out or in simpler terms why they have to be mutually exclusive. I can see why the goals might be separated but I don't see why everyone is witch-hunting women's collegiate (d2 *cough* *cough*) rugby culture. It's fun, and relaxed environment to learn the game. If someone is particularly motivated to become involved at the elite level there are age grade all-star teams to play on to get funneled into the serious athlete pool. Yea the collegiate level coaching is frustrating (and probably worse then the high school level at times) but it does spread the word and I'm kinda sick of it being reviled by every commentator and journalist alike (The Albuquerque papers at nationals and blogs like gainline.us is chock full of mud, slung by certain insecure men at women's teams for even existing much less occasionally using a few cuss words around the pitch) . When D2 men's teams act up they're pretty much ignored... why can't those concerned with the women's game be equally courteous?

Yea 98% of college players have to be completely retaught in order to play at club level, but at least the interest has already been peaked, the hurdle of introducing them to contact has already been broached, and their bound to know more of the rules then the average rookie off the street. Yes clubs occasionally pick up that super-athlete from other sports who are chock full of athleticism and master the game immediately (and you don't have to deal with the cockiness of a kid who thinks they already know everything) but how often does that happen? One or two a season? Just appreciate the collegiate rugby that exists, the competition is getting fitter every year...(just look at Ship elevating the D2 game...they recently took a close loss to Penn State one of the perennial contenders in D1).

Oh sidenote on the elite club level...I really wish Berkeley/WomenEagles.com would update their site more often, especially rosters. With USA rugby being as uninformative as ever it'd be really nice to have updated rosters. It wouldn't take too long and it'd give a heckuva lot more recognition for our women's Eagle heroes. Sidenote number two I really miss the blogs that the Eagle teams used to do when they went on tour and Jen Doan's photography being public and available. It brought the game so much closer then an itty bitty blurry streamed clip could ever do (I mean ideally both) but yea if someone could just screencap and torrent the games imagine how much help it would provide to the *crappy* collegiate teams to watch women's rugby done right. PS I'd totally be willing to do some web/graphic design gruntwork (don't just judge me by this site I can put effort into things if I want) into making a poster for the WNT or Regional Sides if someone would shoot me a handful of decent res photographs (+ permission to work with them). Cause hell yea I think a lot of kids would pick up an Eagle poster (even if it was mondoboring and just a roster WITH THE NAMES OF EACH PLAYER ON THE BACK). The World Cup WNT cards were hella awesome I just wish there was more uh...sports-ish stat info on the back...basics like height weight, what tours they've been on or something....

Alright enough rambling...I'm glad to be back...and with a vengeance...stories of my ass getting kicked last weekend by none other then the Berkeley All Blues to be posted soon...hopefully with pictures.

Homeless

2008-06-27T20:30:00.001-07:00

as of tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Busy Busy Busy

2008-06-23T22:32:00.000-07:00

Working and looking for a place to live. Packing up my life and preparing for the road ahead (being homeless)! Yup so things are rough, I played touch last Tuesday but missed on Thursday I'm going to skip out again tomorrow. But I've got a bunch of places to check out. I'll probably make it to Palo Alto if we manage to scrounge up enough players...but I don't know how wise it'll be. My hand is STILL screwed up, and so is my cheekbone and my wrist is acting up at work. Ugh. But yea. Passed all my classes with B's aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I guess that's it. Peace

Ixnay on the first tournament

2008-06-15T19:58:00.000-07:00

Because June 28th is Pride! Oh my, I managed to graduate and everything...four long years...heh the whole thing feels anti-climactic after rugby season has ended. Navy is up here chilling with us. I start my job tomorrow. It should be all fitness, I'm really going to push myself to keep up a good pace at work, get some muscle back on these bones, maybe eat a little better. Not much to report, NASC isn't really my thing but MARFU and Northeast have done well. *sigh* Not much rugby news besides that...here's some pictures to kill time.

This one is at Alumni...

This one is a random pic of the fog game

There's Not a Whole Lot to Say...

2008-06-12T12:50:00.000-07:00

Ahaha I'm done with finals and it's finally summer. Sorry I've been mondo busy, NASC stuff is going down so yea....a bit of regret but there's no way I would have had the money to play in it (nor would I have made the team with my fitness level (-50). Heh oh well...not a whole lot of rugby stuff to talk about...*sigh* Wales just got it's ass whupped by South Africa which isn't surprising even considering the lack of top players on both sides. Summer 7s ought to be starting soon. I know my next match will probably be on the 28th in Palo Alto...hopefully we can go to Santa Barbara and Tritip as well, that'd be great. Anyhoo yea more updates once practice starts up again and my room looks less like a disaster area

My face hurts

2008-06-02T23:40:00.000-07:00

...and I'm procrastinating. We tied the game against the Fog which is damn good considering we were spread pretty thin and had to get creative in our positions. We showed the same weaknesses that we payed for in New Mexico (slow to the breakdowns, susceptible to stripping + poaching, poor support). *sigh* it was a fun match. I had to switch to prop fairly early in the first half and while Lenny was jumping we had their lineout beat. Jacuzzi went out with a separated shoulder, same ol' Natalie...just a lot of side to side, they had pretty good wings and better soft hands then we're used to playing. It's a shame, hopefully we'll (heh I mean UCSC...I'm alum now) be able to play them at decent strength in pre-season, I'm sure we could give 'em a tougher match. Oh...breakdowns went to hell with both sides killing the ball or conversely interfering with the competition...which made for a messy match.

I caught a fist to the eye (non-intentional), a couple lumps to the head, more damage to my hand, and some tiger stripes... not bad for a match against a club side.

Mmm afterwards it was quite fun talking to some of the Fog women. I got to shoot the shit with ruggers from all over from Chico to Pitzer it was neat. I guess they joined up with SLO last Champagne Classic and we talked about how fun those kids are. One of 'em had played for Belmont under Herb and Kiwis and playing abroad. I talked to them about playing after college and I think I've become attached to my rash decisions (like beating berkeley once at palo alto 7s). Another one of my kind of baseless plans is to move to Berkeley once I graduate spend the rest of the year as a tackle pad for them (just to pick up some stuff) and then maybe look towards moving to Davis. Or maybe I'll like Berkeley....

Gotta say though, this was a wakeup call...I forgot how much different club rugby is compared to DII collegiate rugby...hmm

oh and I can't remember for the life of me how I know their hooker...maybe it was palo alto 7s but I don't know how she'd know my name/recognize me.

Ahhh my last KC was nice. Was pretty cranky when I first arrived but I did have a massive headache from my cheekbone/orbital...but ended up being a nice function. Got a sweet women's springbok backpack in recognition of four long years =]

Gotta say the class of 04-08 kicked ass...we never lost a league game. Nuff bragging...there's so much more to be done in my rugby career! (er...including minor stuff like writing three papers this week so I pass my classes so I can ykno...graduate soon)

Gotta Love the Message

2008-05-27T21:24:00.000-07:00

and I love the senior vids...I'm a sentimental hooker

practice tomorrow...I'm definitely going to regret not running this weekend

mmm side note...I've been sick since three weeks before washington...uh you count the months but I'm friggin tired of it.

Best Alumni Game Ever

2008-05-18T22:47:00.000-07:00

Yupppp I'm procrastinating again. Right...ok six hours to write a six page paper.

Wait I was talking about alumni game this weekend! Which was both interesting and informative. (this post is really late I'm sorry)

We did fairly well against a pretty all star group of alumni. We scored twice, once at kickoff as well as the start of the half but they caught up when we lent them our inside and outside center, and wing. We lost by a try....*sigh* I'm kind of getting sick of that...I had to make a few gnarly tackles on Tina (Fortuna HS' coach) and Tank (Davis' asst. coach). It was definitely my favorite alumni match...maybe it had to do with being a senior...maybe because I was hydrated and slightly prepared.

It was also informative...Davis is making a women's team (coached by UCD's coaches) and it's going to be a mix with Chico...which is pretty exciting. I'm really interested in playing for them but I still want to learn some stuff from the All Blues first. I know I'll only be a tackle bag for them but I just want to listen to their coaching and ask a lot of questions...anyhoo sorry for the super belated post.

Game against the SF Fog this weekend. Let's win it slugs!

remembering what it means to be sore

2008-05-15T10:15:00.001-07:00

and man does it suck. I jogged to the local park on tuesday (8 blocks total =p). Hiked across campus and went to practice yesterday and running felt a lot better on turf. Biked my ass off today...but yea my quads are killing me. My hammy seems to be ok and my sprint is getting faster again but my knee still lacks flexibility. Dunno what I'm going to do about that. I'm starting to bike again at night to combat my insomnia. It's fun and freeing and makes me feel like I can fly (or make 50m in 5s ahahaaaa jk).

Oh and I got a job...I'm doing work crew this summer...so moving furniture, cleaning, painting, and then moving the furniture back. So I should get thrashed this summer...only problem is they only pay once a month =p so I may need a second job...hopefully not in cash control again. Right...and I don't have anywhere to live *sigh*. I may live out of my car.

Alumni Game this weekend..I'm not looking forward to that...last year they smashed us and all the kids refuse to take the game seriously...*sigh*. I care less about this game...I wanna beat fog...I wanna win my last college game even if this one doesn't count. I wish my tighthead was here though. Oh and we'll be getting the good pics from washington PCRFU playoffs soon (I know it took foreeeeeeeeeevver) but here are some nice ones from Nationals in Albuquerque.

Despite the warnings to the coaches that dangerous and high tackles were going to be harshly penalized....they weren't. We made our fair share but the crackdown was nowhere to be found. Wayne State in Yellow, UC Santa Cruz WRFU in black and gold

eh just a scrum pic

8 man pic after we stole the ball against the head

Kelsey Setliff a natural born wing at outside center...

Kelly McMahon with the ball and Lynne Freeman in support (Lynne-O being my roommate for four years...)

Making a go for the outside corner Kelly McMahon and Mashawna Miller in support (two lethal runners man they'd be good with some training)

But really to no avail...this was pretty typical of the game. Backs would try and make a run...get smashed (crushed, demolished, decimated etc)..and the forwards would be exhausted trailing a million miles behind

Typical Ship Quality #2: They could strip the ball out of contact/in rucks like kids grabbing candy (gotta say they were better rippers then any of the D1 teams we played in pre-season) the only ball we won was from set piece and that doesn't go very far when you can't retain the ball for more then a few phases

yup so maybe I'll post more later but that's just a few snapshots from the field...hats off to ship...they were one beastly fit and ferocious team

Quickies

2008-05-08T10:31:00.000-07:00

So yea Stanford and Ship are the DI and DII national champs! Congrats! I have a midterm today and I'm totally procrastinating! What else...I need to write a resume this weekend, get a job, figure out whose couch I'm crashing on...ahhhh. This summer is interesting...I could be crashing in Fresno if I can find an online course over summer or working and living on campus.

Alumni game coming up...we're going to have our asses kicked...I wanna play with the aluni...and near the end of the month we have a game against Fog (exhibition/scrimmage).

One of our lovely rookies has pictures that I'm going to post up here so check back soon. My coach kinda has me convinced to go with Berkeley though...

back to studying!

D1 Championship Rugby Updates

2008-05-02T23:20:00.000-07:00

Same old same old up at Steuber Stadium, Stanford beat Navy 40-20 (in a pretty close match till the last quarter of the game) and Penn beat Brown. So it's the same match-up for what....like the fourth year? I don't know if it was my frosh year but definitely for the last three years. Call and BYU won as well..kinda boring stuff actually.

Well that's cool...they're revising the All American Selection Process

2008-04-29T19:17:00.000-07:00

So here is a mish mash of information garnered from a rugby nobody.

There's a new selection process with new people ranking it, Keenya Warner (who I totally gushed over at team registration in new mexico...but forgot that she was a center not a wing...btw I'm really glad I got the trading cards for the women's world cup team because I've met seven of them and was able to recognize the opportunity thanks to the cards) (I really ought to start getting them signed), Chris Ryan (USA 7s attack coach), and Sue Whitwell (forwards coach for the USA Developmental Team). They're going to pick two teams for DI and one team for DII. They're looking positionally. Yea....secret hope. But as my astute teammate pointed out...maybe if I'd have a chance if I was as fit/played as well as I had my soph or even junior year. Yea...thx teammate.

I'm still pinwheeling and horribly behind school-wise...just trying to recover and catch my breath during midterms. I'm going to be missing the championship games at Stanford 'cause my old fly-half is getting married. Or at least I don't think I'm going.

I still don't know which team I'm going to play for post-college...mostly because I have no idea where I'm going to be.

That also goes for summer...actually I have no clue where I'm living over summer or fall. I haven't actually decided whether I'm staying for summer...yeaaaaaaa about that. It's like losing the engage and getting driven back...I need to take the time and readjust my positioning...get my studs firmly back in the ground. Deal with school in the short term and make sure I pass my classes this quarter. Get back in study mode.

Rugby career wise I want to 1)get in shape (for the first time ever) 2)learn club level rugby (which means good coaching)...which leaves me with one option if I stay in NorCal.

oh some videos, gotta say I love both sides of women's rugby

Stanford...

GO Bre and Navy!

SLO...(not really 100% work safe)

The End of my College Rugby Career

2008-04-22T10:41:00.000-07:00

Weird. I know that I should compose something...reflect, synthesize and summarize my four year run as a DII collegiate women's rugby player. But I can't...it's over. Yea there's a few more functions but all of these experiences are now part of the past. My family, my teammates, my homeland will now be a part of my past, an imagined non-corporeal space to be invoked but never returned to. I am now in exile.

Ok so back to the facts. I'm not all that upset that we lost, frankly we made it farther then I expected...I'm glad we won league...that was the only symmetry that I was seeking. It was nice to make it as far as 3rd or 4th in the nation. We won our first game 60-0 against Wayne State from Nebraska, the elevation was so bad that I forgot our lineout calls...we dominated possession anyways. I scored two tries. We scored all but one of our tries in the first half, we subbed at the half and "experimented" on running side to side (don't ask). Our second game against Shippensburg was obviously the kicker and we lost 12-7. They scored two in the first half and we just couldn't respond. It took a good twenty minutes to catch onto their scrum and then we started stealing all their put-ins (that's just how I roll). Unfortunately we couldn't do anything with our possession (but run sideways). They were PHYSICAL at the breakdown and could poach like pro cooks. We rallied in the first half and I scored our only try (just a penalty tap + a dive). Unfortunately the time just ran out on us. An easy way to put it is our strong people were to slow and our fast people were too weak for this match. Tons of injuries, our lock continued with a broken collarbone (lifting too...*wince*) and our inside fractured her elbow (and kept playing). The decision making on and off the field were pretty poor but meh. It's all over. I walked in my last game. I get to live with that for the rest of my life. Sucks. The knee on my striking leg is swollen to the size of a softball but it's just superficial, no ligament damage. My right wrist has limited mobility and my hammy nagged me even in the heat. My temple is throbbing where a knee clipped it. But I walked away from the game much to easily.

At least I played in my final game, at least I scored (more then anyone else on the team), at least I was making my tackles, and was stealing ball in scrums. It sucks that the team has turned into something where one can't get a "good job" unless you win. But that's why potential sucks.

Three cheers for the seniors.
Natalie Jacuzzi (the craziest funniest mofo I've ever met #15)
Michelle Sit (rabid sensitive chinchilla #6, #7, #8)
Cat Antonio (all heart loyal #7)
Lauren Lopez (my homo a gogo housemate prop lock and drop it)
Lynne Freeman (my dad, my best friend, two years and we're legally married #12)
Kerrie Kubo (me, woo #2)

I'm excited though, new chapter blah blah blah. Time to be a rookie again, build my way to the bench, maybe even start. I haven't decided which club I'll play for...Davis might start a team or we may rehab the amazons...or Fog...or maybe even Berkeley (but I doubt it). I do want to move to the bay...I have no idea what I'm going to do career-wise or ykno in life. But I'm pretty determined that this won't be the last time I'm at a USAR Championship. =] oh and a number of us are playing 7s in Palo Alto again. And we have goal....we're going to beat the Berkeley All Blues!!!! Fuck yea! Somehow! Mwahahaahaaaaa <-----total crazy joke (their 7s team last year was Ruth, Petrie, Blair, etc etc etc)

I'll be posting all sorts of media and crap. But yea I've really enjoyed playing NorCal DII Women's Collegiate rugby. I've had so much fun with the crazy muthas in our league from Sac State to Monterey so y'all better play club rugby 'cause I wanna play with you and against you again!

ps....no clue what direction this blog is going in...but it'll still be women's rugby, give me some feedback!

Off to the National Collegiate Rugby Championships of 2008

2008-04-17T20:56:00.000-07:00

Yup, well wish us luck. And Belmont Shore. I'll be taking copious amounts of pics and videos so stay tuned. Let's bring it back to California...I wanna play a home game one last time =]

National Guard Collegiate Rugby Nationals (or whatever mouthfull you prefer) infogasm

2008-04-16T07:56:00.000-07:00

Goff put up his annual predictions...and for once we're on top..but once again his predictions never matter because we all play very different types of rugby (not even styles...but types) and we'll see how things work out from there (we probably only got the nod because we've been rather good the last two years). I don't know if I'll say more because he is a subscription based site. What else on goff...oh he posted some guy's estimates on the number of collegiate teams in the US...so by my counting 329 women's colleges (versus 461 men's teams that's a lot more parity then I expected). Interesting stuff.

D1 and D2 are mixed and not demarcated but let's look at local available competition (and yes I realize other teams play out of state for games)

16 Women's Colleges in Minnesota with UM-Duluth
12 for ours in Norcal
61 in New England for Norwich (I'm pretty sure the Northeast has DIII women's collegiate rugby)
8 in SoCal for Claremont
9 in North Carlolina for East Carolina (yup that's confusing)
30 in East Penn for Shippensburg
4 for Wayne State in "the great plains"?
11 in the Pacific Northwest for Western Washington

and that rounds out the 8 in order of seeding...which allows for an interesting comparison. I will also repeat that it's just weird going to 8s without Mary Washington (they've made the last three).
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More Geographic Stuff:

View Larger Map

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Some info gleaned (ok copied) from USA rugby, I'm kinda glad our match isn't being streamed online...just because I'm superstitious. It's pretty considerate that they kept DII out of Friday matches probably because they understand the financial burdens an extra day would put on the clubs. One can also infer that there are going to be four fields of rugby. DII Women's is being sandwiched between DI women's and DI men's...and I'd be concerned about the fields getting torn up if they weren't apparently made up of dead ass dirt to begin with. Hopefully this satellite picture from google maps is outdated...

MATCH SCHEDULE
Friday, April 18
1:30: Dartmouth v BYU (DI MEN)
1:30: San Diego State v Arkansas State (DI MEN)
2:00: St. Mary’s v Air Force (DI MEN)
2:00: Bowling Green State v Kutztown (DI MEN)
2:30: Cal v Tennessee (DI MEN)
2:30: Army v Cal Poly (DI MEN)
3:00: Penn State v Minnesota (DI MEN)
3:00: Colorado v Utah (DI MEN)
4:00: Northern Iowa v Stanford (DI WOMEN)
4:00: Virginia v Colorado (DI WOMEN)
4:30: Brown v West Chester (DI WOMEN)
4:30: UCLA v UC Davis (DI WOMEN)

Saturday, April 19th

9:00: Penn State v Florida (DI WOMEN)
9:00: Chico State v Indiana (DI WOMEN)
9:00: Texas A&M v Cal (DI WOMEN)
9:00: Vassar v Navy (DI WOMEN)
10:30: Coast Guard v Loyola (DII MEN)
10:30: Michigan v Radford (DII MEN)
10:30: Middlebury v Northern Colorado (DII MEN)
10:30: Utah Valley State v East Carolina (DII MEN)
11:30: Norwich v Shippensburg (DII WOMEN)
11:30: Wayne State v UC Santa Cruz (DII WOMEN)
11:30: East Carolina v Claremont (DII WOMEN)
11:30: UNM-Duluth v WWU (DII WOMEN)
1:30: Winner of Dartmouth/ BYU v Winner of SDSU/ Arkansas State (DI MEN)
1:30: Loser of Dartmouth/ BYU v Loser of SDSU/ Arkansas State (DI MEN)
2:00: Winner of St. Mary’s/ Air Force v Winner of BGSU/ Kutztown (DI MEN)
2:00: Loser of St. Mary’s/ Air Force v Loser of BGSU/ Kutztown (DI MEN)
3:00: Loser of Cal/Tennessee v Loser of Army/ Cal Poly (DI MEN)
3:30: **Winner of Cal/Tennessee v Winner of Army/ Cal Poly (DI MEN)**
3:30: Winner of Penn State/ Minnesota v Winner of Colorado/ Utah (DI MEN)
3:30: Loser of Penn State/ Minnesota v Loser of Colorado/ Utah (DI MEN)
4:00: Winner of Stanford/ UNI v Winner of Virginia/ Colorado (DI WOMEN)
4:00: Loser of Stanford/ UNI v Loser of Virginia/ Colorado (DI WOMEN)
4:30: Winner of Brown/ West Chester v Winner of UCLA/ UC Davis (DI WOMEN)
4:30: Loser of Brown/ West Chester v Loser of UCLA/ UC Davis (DI WOMEN)

Sunday, April 20
8:30: Winner of Texas A&M/ Cal v Winner of Vassar/ Navy (DI WOMEN)
8:30: Loser of Texas A&M/ Cal v Loser of Vassar/ Navy (DI WOMEN)
8:30: Winner of Penn State/ Florida v Winner of Chico State/ Indiana (DI WOMEN)

8:30: Loser of Penn State/ Florida v Loser of Chico State/ Indiana (DI WOMEN)
10:00: Winner of Norwich/Shippensburg v Winner of Wayne State/ UCSC (DII WOMEN)
10:00: Loser of Norwich/Shippensburg v Loser of Wayne State/ UCSC (DII WOMEN)
10:00 Winner of ECU/ Claremont v Winner of UNM-Duluth/ WWU (DII WOMEN)
10:00: Loser of ECU/ Claremont v Loser of UNM-Duluth/ WWU (DII WOMEN)
11:00: Winner of Coast Guard/ Loyola v Winner of Michigan/ Radford (DII MEN)
11:00: Loser of Coast Guard/ Loyola v Loser of Michigan/ Radford (DII MEN)
11:00: Winner of Middlebury/UNCo v Winner of UVSC/ECU (DII MEN)
11:00: Loser of Middlebury/UNCo v Loser of UVSC/ECU (DII MEN)

**Time has changed to accommodate broadcast schedule**

Webcast Matches
Friday, April 18th
2:00: St. Mary’s College vs. Air Force (DI Men)
4:00: Univ. of Northern Iowa v Stanford (DI Women)

Saturday, April 19th

9:00: Penn State v Univ of Florida (DI Women)
11:30: Norwich v Shippensburg (DII Women)
1:30: Winner of Dartmouth/ BYU v Winner of SDSU/ Arkansas State (DI MEN)
3:30: Winner of Cal/Tennessee and Winner of Army/Cal Poly (DI Men)

Sunday, April 20th

8:30: Winner of TX A&M/ Cal and winner of Vassar/ Navy (DI WOMEN)
11:00: Winner of Coast Guard/ Loyola and winner of Mich/ Radford (DII MEN)

---------------------------------------
Ugh lots of stuff to deal with...I have a paper to write, gotta do laundry, one more practice, blah blah blah....am I excited to go to New Mexico? Hell no! But it's pretty crazy that 48 teams are going to be there..I think the state's gonna run outta ambulances, ice, food, and beer.

Everyone and your mother...

2008-04-14T13:46:00.000-07:00

my mom visited me this weekend and it was stressful and nice. I'm just feeling old and beat-up again. Now I'm twenty-two and one more week of practice before the next round of eliminations. It's crazy that there are going to be 48 teams in New Mexico...that's a little nutso to me. I'm kind of sick of it all. It's been hot as hell at practice...hotter then it is in New Mexico. I miss winter.

Women's Rugby Videos

2008-04-09T09:20:00.000-07:00

This shouldn't be taken the wrong way but home video-editing has really improved (at least among the D1 squads)

UC Davis:

Penn State:

And a wee little unedited video we took at Pac Coast Playoffs on Day 1...Western Washington in the cute blue number and our best friends from Cali Sac State in the white green and gold. (Ps I'm starting to notice that all of my youtube videos are of sac state playing...)

UCSC WRFC are the Pacific Coast Champions

2008-04-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

after defeating Western Washington 36-10. In the first half we had an onslaught of four or five tries (three in the last three minutes). Unfortunately I personally let a try through, there were a number of penalties and I just turned my back and it was exploited for a try (their nine Heather Stephens was a wily old head). We scored a few more in the second half. We mostly just soaked up their pressure on defense and our scrums were also negatively affected because we had to play a man down for almost the entire half (two yellow cards...team penalties for silly stuff we'll work on). The refs of the tournament were fair and reffed a good game...but once again it illustrated how different LAUs stress different things. I mean things that slow down the game are pretty universally penalized but I've never seen a ref blow the whistle so many times for incorrect quick taps or a hooker striking a ball out of the tunnel(when trying to steal it). I didn't do too much in the games but I think I finally got over my cold so that's a plus. Now I just have to get my life in order, turn 22, prepare for my mom's visit (ie clean), study study study, work a little, fund raise for the trip to "the National Guard's" Elite 8 or Collegiate Championship Series in Albuquerque, New Mexico, buy books etc. Oh..and y'kno train five days a week. Ughhh. Maybe eat. Maybe Sleep.

Pictures to be posted later but yea it was cold in Washington. It wasn't significantly colder then Santa Cruz in winter...but it's spring. And there was a very stiff wind that we used to our advantage but made lineout ball pretty difficult. Then again it didn't rain while we were on the pitch...there was snow on the ground the day we arrived though (at our host family's house not on the field).

Ahh it's good to have that feeling again, my team is my family, wherever we go is home, and trust me sometimes it really is a traveling circus =]

**Edit** just a little addition...
Women's Rugby: Shippensburg Shuts Out Norwich, 30-0
Apr 6, 2008

SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. - After beginning the season by winning its first 16 games, the Norwich University women's rugby team lost its second straight contest on Sunday, as the Cadets were soundly defeated by Shippensburg, 30-0.

The Cadets (16-2) were dominated by Shippensburg from the beginning of the game, and could not get anything going. The 30-0 final score marks the worst loss for NU in a number of years.

"Confusion best describes this weekend," said Norwich head coach Austin Hall. "On Friday night, we played one of the top Division I teams in the country (West Chester), and we played to our potential. Today, we just fell off the map against another excellent side. I must give a lot of credit to West Chester and Shippensburg; they have both built very strong programs and played well this weekend. We have our work cut out for us over the next two weeks."

Norwich (16-2) will have a second opportunity against Shippensburg (17-1) on April 19 in Albuquerque, N.M., in the quarterfinals of the National Championship.

*edit* this caught me off guard at first but then I realized it was just a typo on the journalist's part...Norwich faces Shippensburg in the first round of 8s and not the quarterfinals (because those matches are obviously still up in the air). Final seeds are up:

2008 Seedings

1 Midwest #1 University of Minnesota- Duluth
2 Pacific #1 UC Santa Cruz
3 Northeast #1 Norwich
4 Southern Cal #1 Claremont College
5 South #1 East Carolina
6 Mid-Atlantic #1 Shippensburg
7 West #1 Wayne State
8 Pacific #2 Western Washington University

It'll be weird without Mary Washington

Blogging from the field of Pacific Coast Regional Collegiate DII Women's Rugby Playoffs...

2008-04-06T08:22:00.000-07:00

Damn that's a long title...but yes indeedy it's day two of this fine but frigid tournament. Which means day one already happened and what the hell am I doing up at 8:30 in the morning after a match...*sigh* Well yesterday the team was under the assumption that the match began at two...funny story...and we got a call around 11:15from the other coaches asking where the hell we were. Our opponents from Central Washington were already on the field warming up...our match was at twelve. Brilliant. So having 25 panicked girls running around trying to pack their gear after packing down a big ol' breakfast was a wee bit of chaos (PS our host family is amazing). The match got pushed back like half an hour but it was still really tight. The chill and the wind were the only things that was really different then Santa Cruz. The stiff wind made it hard to hear calls and even harder to through a straight lineout ball. We scored three tries in the first half and they dotted one down after a weakside play with their swift winger. Their flanker was having a hard time hitting her mark (she was overthrowing it) but I was damn impressed that she could throw the ball completely straight for fifteen in that wind. But yea final score 17-5 with UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs to face the Western Washington Flames at er 1? this afternoon...I need to check my own schedule. Pics of the match to be posted when I get back home in Cali Cali!

We really do have something to play for today. Western Washington were cool girls, they're a nice team and they hosted a pasta social dance party after Saturday's matches but.......Sac State left it ALL out on the field yesterday. They had the heart, the skills, they just lacked the healthy bodies. Seriously the match started with tit for tat tries between the two sides until sac state pulled ahead but then their season long lack of subs started taking a toll (they only have 16 players). Existing injuries were taking out people left and right but somehow they managed to dredge their broken bodies around the field so they could stay on and help their mates. It was gutwrenching broken ankles, broken collarbone, major concussions, a girl tore the rest of her ACL...tightened her brace and kept playing. In the last 20 minutes sac had about four or five healthy players but the whole team was playing their guts out. Western Washington were pretty vicious in striking at Sac's vulnerabilities, repeatedly targeting their outside center who was moved to wing because she had a broken ankle. Sac fought all 80 minutes of the match and goddamn if they didn't deserve the win...a few more healthy bodies...the insane level of passion and commitment for your teammates--- this is NorCal D2 Women's Rugby. It's hard not to be parochial, I love Norcal rugby. Let's show the pac northwest what we can do. Let's bring this shit back to Cali

T-minus 2 days till Washington

2008-04-02T10:20:00.001-07:00

Here's some updated info:

PCRFU 1 = USARFU 2
PCRFU 2 = USARFU 8

Seeding:
1 NCRFU 1 | UC Santa Cruz
2 PNRFU 1 | WWU
3 NCRFU 2 | Sac State
4 PNRFU 2 | CWU (2009 seed will be URFU1)

Dates: April 5/6, 2008 (Sat/Sun)
Host: PNRFU, WWU Rugby Club
Venue: Polo Fields, Ferndale, WA
Point of Contact: Rocky Denhartog and Kerry Griffin, 360-920-8425 (c)
PCRFU MC: TBD

Saturday Matches:
12:00pm Match A: NCRFU 1 v PNRFU 2
2:00pm Match B: PNRFU 1 v NCRFU 2

Sunday Matches:
11:00am Match D: Loser A v Loser B
1:00pm Match C: Winner A v Winner B

Winner C = PCRFU 1
Loser C = PCRFU 2
Return To Top

So our first match is against Central Washington. Uh...I might have to drive (which if anyone knows me is a terrifying prospect (I'm over-cautious) I need to do my laundry, survive two more practices and...I dunno...shit like that.

T-Minus 3 Days Until we fly to Washington

2008-04-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

Ahhh and it's going to snow! I'm from SoCal...like Southern California...I can take rain in Santa Cruz but I'm used to sunny warm days with a gentle cooling breeze. I've seen snow once! How do you dress? What do you wear when playing rugby in slush/rain/snow ahhh that's terrifying. If any ruggers abroad have tips for snow now would really be the time to chip in. *sigh* I only own two pairs of pants and they're both jeans. *grumble* oh and it's 6 o'clock practice which is doing wonders for my illness. We were doing drills for 30 minutes in the dark. Blah blah blah need to fundraise...what else.

Ohh I saw Wendy's article and shot a brief msg to their webmaster...mainly just talking about how Iowa State beat us last year and for fucksake to give women's rugby credit in their LAU.

Oh so beyond early morning practices our flight leaves from San Jo at 6am...so we get to wake up at 3-4...grumble mutter grumble. Maybe I'm just tired and wheezy and sick of coughing but it really is exciting...I'm just not the peppy person. It's so weird practicing contact again... what else..
The seeding is firming up for Elite 8s in New Mexico:

1 Midwest #1 University of Minnesota- Duluth
2 Pacific #1
3 Northeast #1
4 Southern Cal #1 Claremont College
5 South #1 East Carolina
6 Mid-Atlantic #1 Shippensburg
7 West #1
8 Pacific #2

Well Pacific will be settled this weekend and if Norwich doesn't get Northeast I'll have my socks shocked off. Dunno what's going on in West. Well off to my 6 hour block of class. 9 days till my birthday. There were a lot of numbers in this post.

not much in rugby news

2008-03-26T23:38:00.000-07:00

but I got an A-, B+, B+ this quarter! Mwahahahaaa not too shabby. I'm still trying to kick this cold while still earning some money over spring break. The trip to Washington for regionals is rounding out to 250 a player (for the flight and cars) so yea obviously housing and grub will up the price tag *sigh* and 250 would buy me a terabyte hardrive as well (or more realistically it would get me that much closer to a deposit so I can actually have somewhere to stay this summer). MMmmm what else...

My mum said something really adorable the other day. I guess one of the various rugby catalogs came with a rugby spectator guide and she called to tell me that we had to make it to Stanford because now she understands rucks and mauls and offside laws and wants to see me play again. It's kinda funny how mother's think they're making perfectly reasonable requests when they're actually asking you to move a mountain for them. That and we've already made the National Championship match TWICE and she had to wait til now to learn the damn rules to appreciate the game. *sigh* At the very least it's good motivation to get in shape and sharpen the skills for Washington. No one is looking that far ahead yet (except my mom apparently) but yea...it's post-season and hopefully it'll be a long one. Fourth year. Last chance. What's that old rugby refrain?? That's right...'Redeem Thyself' (a new mantra perhaps?)

Damn GO Navy Go

2008-03-23T14:59:00.000-07:00

heh...taken straight from goff...

March 22, 2008, Annapolis, Md. - An aggressive Navy side took advantage of every Princeton mistake to steamroll the inexperienced Tigers 115-3. Breanna Strand scored 23 points in the first half to lead Navy’s onslaught. Flanker Michelle Akins replied with three tries in the second half for Navy.

Breanna Strand (inside center) went to my high school, and I knew she was a good rugger but damn...=] good to see that she's kicking ass.

Makes me wanna kick this cold and get back in shape

Finished finals...I'm exhausted

2008-03-20T20:54:00.000-07:00

I think my mental toughness has been upped by leaps and bounds. I've been going nonstop for literally a full week (like 22 hour days). I can't believe the sheer amount of shit that I've accomplished. Now that the quarter is over for me I can relax and....deal with the massive amount of shit that's been accumulating.
I need to get back in shape for regionals (I've been running on coca cola and burritos for the last seven very sedentary days)
ughhh

oh and sleep.

hmmm....oh Univ San Francisco joined our league so we'll technically have six teams in our league now if Monterey and San Jose muster up the numbers. Which is awesome but I'll be a slug alumni by then.

Er...the top 20 ranking was finally updated but I don't really care cause we haven't moved.

That's enough rugby news for now right? Er Belmont Shore did pretty damn good at the Champagne Classic. That's about it. It's 9 o'clock and I'm to tired to even drink a beer.

So I skipped pelicans

2008-03-17T00:08:00.000-07:00

And that was probably my one and only chance to play at the elite level. Meh. Life and priorities...right now I need to focus on school...I say that every year, every quarter but it's true. School isn't just a money sink for a piece of paper and the older I get the more I believe in it. *sigh* What else...Humboldt forfeited so there was no game on Saturday...something funky may occur and Humboldt and possibly Reno may move down to D2

What else....

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALES! WALES! BREAD OF HEAVEN! Ahhh it was good to see m'boys win the grand slam. I haven't seen them play so well with such confidence since four years ago. Ah to see Martyn Williams and Shane Williams and Hook and Gethin and Byrne and Ryan Jones and Alun and Ian and Shanklin and Huw and even mister macho Mike Phillips and bleeding Gavin Henson....ahhh hahahahaha and all those who doubted the awesomeness of Wales and Argentina can suck it =]

NorCal DII Women's Collegiate League

2008-03-09T10:40:00.000-07:00

Yup UCSC beat St. Mary's 32-13 yesterday and we won league. I dunno it's just a cool accomplishment to have won league for all four years now. I've had my ups and downs with rugby but man it's been worth it. Yes there was only three teams this year but each match was hard fought and a difficult battle for all sides. More on this later but finals are just around the turn and I have no days to write 15 pages ahhhhh.

What lies ahead...

Women's Collegiate D2 Regional Playoffs

PCRFU 1 = USARFU 2
PCRFU 2 = USARFU 8

Seeding:
1 NCRFU 1 (UCSC)
2 PNRFU 1 (WWU)
3 NCRFU 2 (Sac State)
4 PNRFU 2 (CWU) / URFU 1 (UVSC) (pending March 29 challenge match)

Dates: April 5/6, 2008 (Sat/Sun)
Host: PNRFU, WWU Rugby Club !!! (news to me)!!
Venue: Bellingham, WA

Saturday Matches:
Match A: NCRFU 1 v PNRFU 2
Match B: PNRFU 1 v NCRFU 2

Sunday Matches:
Match C: Winner A v Winner B
Match D: Loser A v Loser B

Winner C = PCRFU 1
Loser C = PCRFU 2

Hmm so we have two seeds again? That's peculiar...

2008 Seedings (a la usa rugby)

1 Midwest #1 [University of Minnesota-Duluth]
2 Pacific #1
3 Northeast #1 [Norwich]
4 Southern Cal #1 [Claremont?]
5 South #1 [Charleston?]
6 Mid-Atlantic #1
7 West #1
8 Pacific #2

and the bracket is as follows
Day 1 in New Mexico
Pool A: Midwest #1 vs Pacific #2
South #1 vs Socal #1
Pool B: Northeast #1 (which is Norwich)vs MARFU #1
Pacific #1 vs West #1

and the rest who knows from there, Norwich is doing a gnarly job ripping up the DII rankings so we'll see how that works out. It is kinda peculiar to have two seeds. I'll try and fill out more info when I'm not in finals week...

Sac State Women's Rugby vs UCSC EDIT

2008-03-01T18:48:00.001-08:00

We won it 12-7 in an in-cre-dibly close match. More details later but other big news. Apparently UC Davis beat Stanford 10-0. YEA....jeez talk about big news especially since the aggies seemed to be struggling a bit this season (with a 1 point victory over Humboldt) **edit** Actually they were in second place **edit** but shit...way to know down one of the top teams in the nation. More details later, but yea my old bones need to take a rest!

pps. so I guess there is a lot more to this story. Stanford had a couple starting players off at a U20 eagle camp and their Sr. capped Eagle flyhalf Jossy Tseng sat on the bench because she was late to the teams warm-ups.

A) that's a pretty cool show of integrity on Stanford's part, (as well as the diff between D1 and D2...hell we couldn't spare the players)

B) Stanford is still on top of the Norcal D1 charts due to point differential

C) a weee bit cocky on Stanford's part.

Yup ok that's it, now I have to finish my five page film paper today, go to practice, try and read a 500 page book (in a day), write a 20 pg paper by sunday, play in a game, read five novels in two-three days, may or may not have promotion/relegation match, may or may not go to pelicans camp, write five pages, read a few hundred pages, write two pages, read a couple thousand pages and catch up on a months worth of work, take two DEATH final exams...and fin. The next fifteen days are going to be....H E L L!!