Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Peace, Love, Rugby



Found this website with this great rugby logo and a nice range of t-shirts and caps.

http://shop.cafepress.com/design/7730906

Great Practice.

Well we had another great practice tonight. Instead of being on our own fields we went over to the old ice rink area for Practice as it gives us great visibility on campus. We actually have three rugby fields at USD but none of them are in parts of campus with student foot traffic and we were on a recruiting drive tonight. Put up the sandwich board with the posters and flyers and and the two "injured" players went about talking to every woman who came close. They handed out all of the flyers so maybe we will get some new recruits on Thursday.

Practice itself was a lot of fun due to the great turnout. Everyone was focused and all the rookies seemed eager to jump into every drill despite their limited knowledge. Good high work rate tackle session (needed as it was clearly a problem last Saturday) and we ended with some semi opposed play with everyone getting the chance to play offense and defense. Fun practice.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

USD V Omaha Women

The Coyotes traveled down to Nebraska to take on the Omaha women's club side and played some very good rugby in a 0-34 loss. While the score looks lop sided the USD women held their own in the set pieces and dominated the breakdowns. Unfortunately they were let down by their tackling and were unable to contain some long breaks when Omaha did get possession of the ball. They were able to play organized, structured rugby and with four players in their first game and two more only in their second game this was a very good result for the team.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Great Video

Here is a great video from the IRB aimed at getting rugby back into the Olympic Games.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

No Game, but what a great week.

Rookies, rookies, rookies.

What a great week for the Yotes as lot's of rookies came out to practice. To have such a good turnout during Rush was such a surprise and it was good to run through some game play and not just spend practice running skills drills. The lineouts still need some work but the scrum looks solid and the backrow finally look comfortable with their plays. Now we just need some more speedsters in the backs. =)

This past week was "Wear Your Jersey to Class Week" and next week is "Bring a Friend to Practice Week". Recruit, recruit, recruit.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Ouch!

The Yotes lose to SDSU

USD took an old fashioned butt kicking at the hands of the women from SDSU on Saturday.........well at least in the first half. USD started the game badly and this may have been in part to the amount of new players in the squad this year. This was the first game for some of the rookies and when the theory and practice of playing a full contact sport met the reality of tackling the very determined and very large women of SDSU they were a little slow to adjust. It wasn't all the rookies fault as the vets also have to be credited with some incredibly silly mistakes that lead to a halftime score of 0-24.

The second half was a complete contrast to the first and while the yotes did give away a try early they dominated possession and territory. The team was able to create plenty of scoring chances and crossed the SDSU line on several occasions only to have the play called back as they were either held up in goal or the ref was unsighted. A try finally came when scrumhalf Tracy Elsen took a quick tap penalty, beat a player and dived over for the score. Doni Gustafson kicked the conversion. USD kept up the pressure and the game ended with the team again at the SDSU five meter line.

While the first half was clearly a disappointment the team was pleased with it's performance in the second half and simply having some more practice time together should solve the problems.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

USD Loses Season Opener

Saturday September 6th

The USD women's rugby dropped their home opener to Wayne State by a score of 0-5. The game was marked by a lot of errors on both sides partly due to the teams agreeing to use the game as an opportunity to get playing time for their rookies. Wayne State is currently ranked #6 in the D2 National rankings and hopefully the close result will be an indicator of the strength of the USD women's team this season.

The team travels to Brookings next Saturday to take on the SDSU Women. Game time is 1 pm.