Your Scrumhalf Connection - Women's Rugby Blog

Sorry all...been SUPER BUSY with the move and all to Austin.

Here's basically a summary of what has been going on around locally and for me in general...

NATIONAL ALL STAR CHAMPIONSHIP JUNE 9-11, 2006

Found a SUPER cheap ticket to Colorado and arrived Tuesday afternoon...was picked up by my AWESOME brother (Hi Jeff!) in his new fun car. Its a 70's VW Thing. I have attached a pic because it is such a fun car!! He just got it a few months ago and was super excited to show it off!

Anyways I arrived a few days early to train with the Olde Girls as I was attempting to play scrumhalf after playing outside center in Minnesota. I was excited to have the opportunity as only one of the coaches had ever seen me play scrumhalf and none of my mates had EVER seen me play there. Thanks for the chance coaches and mates!

West vs. Pacific
Our first game was Friday against Pacific. We arrived at the field a nervous bunch...hours before we had to play. So the apprehension began...and we finally got to warm up. Most of us had our boots on WAY before we were supposed to! I was selected as one of the 5 reserves as scrumhalf and made sure I was mentally prepared to come in at any time but knew I would get some playing time at the half. The game started and as a team that usually starts on their back foot we had made a goal to start at a running pace and control everything. We did an excellent job of bonding together and stepping up to the goal.

I don't know the exact scores...and can't find them anywhere on the internet! But I am remembering that Pacific scored a few times in the first half. The second half began with a few substitutions including myself and Hoops. We were SO pumped...and then the storms that had threatened all day started producing lightening. USA Rugby called for a game delay of at least 30 minutes. So all the adrenaline and pace-setting we had done as a team was shot down. We spent at least an hour in the parking lot before we were allowed to warm up and start playing again.

The second half went well, we had some GREAT runs and got very close to scoring but couldn't quite get the ball into the try zone. We ended up losing...we had them on the run at the half, they were starting to tire...but damn colorado storms.

On Saturday we were able to watch the USA Women play Canada. What a match!! It looked like a tough one for the eagles, but then Ellie Karvoski stepped up and notched a few tries to make it look easy. Great job ladies! Shout-out to DUDE!

Northeast def. West, 29-6
Sunday morning we knew that we had to play early against the North East and that if we wanted to stay in Tier 1 we had to have a win. I was selected as starting scrumhalf and was nervous as hell! But I knew that they wouldn't put me in that spot unless they had full confidence...we had to win!

We were moving the ball well, setting clean rucks and doing all the hard work but couldn't seem to get the ball into the try zone again. Over and over we had great continuity, support and fitness...but just couldn't make it happen. The penalty kicks by Val were great though!

So all in all the weekend didn't go quite as we had imagined...as for the U23 women though, they kicked ass all weekend and were able to take 1st place! Nice work ladies!