Your Scrumhalf Connection - Women's Rugby Blog

Dear Rugby Family-

I just wanted to let you know how well your Beavers represented Texas (and Florida) last weekend in Eastham, Mass. We went there with one goal in mind, and that was to win the skit contest, but we walked away with much more.

We met for team dinner on Friday night at Land Ho, a local spot referred to as "The Ho" and known to beavers worldwide as "Da' Ho." After enjoying a fine seafood dinner we began our first hours of rehearsal of this year's skit entitled "If you wanna be a Beavah." We all headed back to the hotel and continued our rehearsal until the neighbor adjacent to our rehearsal hotel room knocked on the door and tried to politely imply that she would like us to stop singing.

On Saturday, we remembered that we were supposed to play rugby and headed to the pitch. There were 15 teams in our social bracket divided into 5 pools of three. Our first match was against a team from Portland, Maine. Some beavers had not even seen a rugby ball in a while, but it did not matter. Beavers over Portland 12-5, with Kitty Dorsey scoring the game winning try in the last minute, a nice 60 meter breakaway. The next match was against Charles River, a team playing in bumblebee outfits with tutus and all. The beavers began to stretch out their legs and won easily 33-0. Try of the match was a nice run by Shaleez who ran in untouched after a perfectly executed skip two, 2 loop 3 with Kitty. Bags made 4 out of 5 conversions. We waited several hours for the seeding to be determined and Baby Beaver, Nadiva Osborn was an angel and a trooper in the hot sun.

We were techinically supposed to be seeded 2nd in pool play with our record and net points, but a tournament snafu resulted in us being incorrectly seeded 3rd in quarterfinal play. Our match was set against Providence B side. Beavers were on a winning streak with a 19-5 win over Providence. It should have been a shut out as Providence scored on a forward pass that was not blown up by the official, but regardless, the end result was the same. The semi-final match was a rematch with Portland. They had left a bad taste in our beaver bucktoothed mouths with some dirty play in the scrum (the hooker liked punching people in the face) and an overzealous, crashing center that refused to pass it, ever. It was a tough grudge match and with no time left it was tied 0-0, but the ref continued to let us play, not forcing us into overtime. Beavers capitalized on some unorganized defense and were able to put in a try right in the middle of the uprights, conversion was good, Beavers 7, Portland 0. We were headed for the final.

Unfortunately, the final did not go as well as we had hoped. The Hartford team played a very rough 15s style with a particularly large crashing prop. Not a 7s prop, but a tried and true 15s prop and this style did not suit our undersized team. Beavers lost 19-0, there may have been an additional try, but I tried to block out most of that last match. Bags left us with this statement after the match, "We are the best 7s team in this tournament, in this bracket."

The San Diego Surfers were there and they won the competitive bracket. Bags was able to help them out in two matches and I ran around with them for one. Also, Shalay, Bags, and Pony joined the "Motley Crue" team with some of the bumblebees. That team ultimately won the consolation championship. So, there was a little beaver involved in every championship match at the tournament!

The skit contest went exactly as planned. The costumes were AMAZING and the beavers went all out as the Spice Beavs. There was no real competition at the social and the judges decided unanimously in record time that we were to take home the first place trophy. Well, this year's the trophy was a melted record with a tiny plastic trophy the size of a shot glass, but nonetheless we were happy to take home the plastic! Pony Spice (Poners) and Naughty Nurse Spice (Sally) were especially popular amongst the judges and crowd. Old Spice (Shaleez) was also a crowd favorite for her geriatrics on stage. Finishing out the spices with exceptional costuming were Vanilla Sp-ICE (Lisa), Ginger Spice (Rocky), Very Scary Spice (Marinda), Baby Spice (Kitty), Sporty Spice (Fish), and Posh Spice (Bags).

We enjoyed our victories that evening and met for Beaver court in the morning before half of the crew had to rush off to the airport. An interesting tidbit from court is that Pony was racked up a record setting 10 charges in just a matter of 2 days. She's a very baldy behaved Pone.

In other news, I hear that the West 7s all-star team came away with 2nd place in the tournament in Chicago. Congrats to Heidi and Fanny (who was an undercover all-star, nobody told me you made it!) for making the team and representing da' Beavers! If you two have any news, please share.

I would love to hear how the gals in Corpus did. I heard a bit, but not much.

Rosalind

For full list of teams and schedule check out this post.

Still no results from the Tournament Director or any of the many teams that attended...sad!

For a comprehensive list with results etc, of 2008 7's Tournaments, go here.

For more adventures that the Satiated Beavers have had this summer, be sure to check out the Beaver Den.