Your Scrumhalf Connection - Women's Rugby Blog

Over the weekend the blog counter for Your Scrumhalf Connection broke 100,000 hits!! The fact that we are already up to 100,728 by TODAY is worth noting as well! I believe the count broke 100,000 in the wee morning hours of Sunday.

So lets celebrate by opening a virtual bottle of champagne (or your choice of beverage!), raise a glass and high-five each other around the Ruckosphere!

Thanks for reading, submitting, watching, viewing etc and making this blog what it is today. When I originally started this blog on March 31, 2006 it was for the purpose of writing about the West Rugby Union and all the teams in the West. Oh how the blog has evolved, changed and developed since that time.

Thanks for all your time, thoughts and kind words readers. I raise my glass to you!

UPDATE: There have been several emails and chats today of readers claiming (Shagam, Mikey and Alyssa!) they were the one that put the counter over 100,000. I have done some research on my counter logs and the one to put me over 100,000 is....DRUMROLL PLEASE....

A reader from Columbus, OH (specifically the Jefferson Commons of Columbus...isn't Street View SCARY?) put the counter over on June 29, 2008 at around 3:46am.Thanks for reading Columbus, OH!

Ronny recommended the video this week, thanks for sending it to me at yourscrumhalfconnection@gmail.com! The video this week is a 2008 Division 1 Women's match of New York vs Chicago North Shore. New York shows some serious muscle as they pushy try it in...looks to be about 8 meters! It appears that New York won this match 19-0 in April 2008 according to their website (I'm just guessing by the date of the upload and the information on their website, please let me know if I am wrong!).

Check it out:

Other Rugby Video Mondays:
6/23/2008: USA Rugby NCAA Iniative
6/17/2008: USA Rugby Youth Promotional Trailer
6/9/2008: West All Star Senior Rugby Fun in the Pool!
6/2/2008: Rugby is Beauty
5/27/2008: Rugby in Dresses!
5/19/2005: AMAZING try in Rugby league
5/12/2008: Sharks vs Minnows
5/5/2008: Trent University Women's Rugby Highlight Reel

from USA Rugby:

NELSPRUIT, South Africa – Before a packed crowd at Nelspruit Rugby Stadium, the USA Under-20 Women’s National Team wrapped up its South Africa tour with a nail-biting 21-17 victory over the South Africa U-20 Women on Saturday, June 28.

The game did not get underway exactly as the U.S. side would have liked, as the South African team came out with incredible speed on the outside and outpaced the USA backs on the kickoff to go up 5-0 within the first minute of play.

A resilient USA U-20 squad regrouped and the forwards continued to gain momentum off repeated pick-and-goes until Tayo Mafe touched down for the first U.S. try at nine minutes in. Catherine Parkhill’s conversion made the score 7-5 in favor of the visitors.

Toward the end of the second half, a slight breakdown in discipline saw a South African player head to the sin bin and the U.S. took advantage, with Tara McGrady catching a swift break down the sidelines and the forwards following close in tow with excellent support.

The ball again found the hands of USA hooker Tayo Mafe, who touched in for her second try on the day and another spot on conversion from Catherine Parkhill grew the U.S. lead to 14-5 at the half.

The USA U-20s came out strong after the break, with standout Seymira Salami darting in for a try in the corner and Catherine Parkhill successfully booting an impressive kick to bring the tally to 21-5.

However, the U.S. fell into a patch of trouble when captain Lisa Henneman was sent to the sin bin for a high tackle and Parkhill was shown red. The South African side capitalized on the adjustments among the U.S. backs to pull within striking distance, 21-17, following tries in the 16th and 21st minutes.

The final eight minutes of play saw the U.S. go down to 13 players when Seymira Salami was sin binned for not releasing, but the team’s forwards continued to dominate and the entire U.S. team committed to fend off the South African team for the victory. Despite one last desperate attempt for the try line by South Africa, the final blow signaled an end result of 21-17.

“The team put in an amazingly gutsy performance. They stayed focused and disciplined and were able to gut it out to the end. There were times when it looked like we might miss out by one point, but this team simply would not allow that to happen,” Under-20 Women’s Coach Bryn Chivers said.

“The entire coaching staff is immensely pleased with the team’s performance and we’re so thankful for the great amount of support we’ve received from our hosts and the fans in South Africa.”

For more information on the USA Under-20 Women’s National Team, please visit www.usarugby.org/goto/womens_u20.

USA 21
15. Tyra McGrady (Indiana), 14. Seymira Salami (State College, PA), 13. Marie Timm (USMA), 12. Lisa Henneman (C) (Seattle Women), 11. Blaine Martin (Brown), 10. Sadie Anderson (Fort Collins, CO), 9. Catherine Parkhill (Armstrong, MN), 1. Joanna Kitlinski (Grand Valley State), 2. Tayo Mafe (Michigan State), 3. Rachel Sommer (West Linn, OR), 4. Mallory Ives (Colorado State), 5. Anneke Brand (Texas Tech), 6. Candace Barley (Maryville, TN), 7. Jozy Gessner (Summit, CO), 8. Katie Johnson (Hopkins, MN)

Replacements: 16. Jay Marie Hill (Stanford), 17. Brittany Rose (West Chester East), 18. Alex Hartley (Brown) repl. Johnson, 19. Brittany Woodard (Hyde School, DC), 20. Kayla Morisoli (San Jose State) repl. Martin, 21. Lauren Danielsen (Summit, CO),
22. BriAnna Barto (Summit, CO) repl. Hartley

Tries: Mafe (2), Salami
Conversions: Parkhill (3)
Yellow cards: Henneman, Salami
Red card: Parkhill

**USA U-20 Women's National Team Game 1 vs South Africa, go here.

**USA U-20 Women's National Team Game 2 vs Developmental team, go here.

**Bryn Chivers gives an update on events, venues etc for upcoming U-20 WNT Events, go here.

USA Rugby is pleased to announce a Coach Development workshops in San Marcos, Texas July 19th thru July 20th at Texas State University and in Tulsa, OK July 26th thru July 27th at the Tulsa Rugby Field. Both Introducing Rugby and Developing Rugby Skills workshops will be offered and will run concurrently Saturday and Sunday from 9am to 5pm both days.

Don’t miss your chance to register for $125 – log on to the Coaches’ Portal or call Kate Strickland (P: 303.539.0300 x129) to enroll now! Remember, the old CAP level 1, 2 & 3 accreditation is no longer offered and to remain certified you will need to participate in the updated program.

COST:
Coaches’ Portal: $20 annually (you must be a member of the Coaches’ Portal in order to register for a workshop)

Price changes (Noon MST on day listed) for San Marcos camp:

· Friday July 4th - $175
· Friday July 11th - $225
· Wednesday July 16th - $300 (online registration closes)
· Walk-in - $300

Price changes (Noon MST on day listed) for Tulsa camp:

· Friday July 11th - $175
· Friday July 18th - $225
· Wednesday July 23th - $300 (online registration closes)
· Walk-in - $300

For a complete schedule and to find out more about the Coach Development Program please visit www.usarugby.org/goto/cdp

Help spread the word; forward this email on to other rugby enthusiasts in your area! Hope to see you there!

SUMMER 2008 CDP SCHEDULE:

DATE	LOCATION	WORKSHOP(S)
June 28-29, 2008	Providence, RI	Introducing Rugby and Developing Rugby Skills
July 12-13, 2008	Omaha, NE	Introducing Rugby
July 19-20, 2008	San Marcos, TX	Introducing Rugby and Developing Rugby Skills
July 26-27, 2008	Tulsa, OK	Introducing Rugby
July 26-27, 2008	Washington, DC	Introducing Rugby and Developing Rugby Skills
Aug 2-3, 2008	Chicago, IL	Introducing Rugby and Developing Rugby Skills
Aug 9-10, 2008	Piscataway, NJ	Introducing Rugby and Developing Rugby Skills
Aug 16-17, 2008	Des Moines, IA	Introducing Rugby

I received an email a few weeks ago from Peter Dawson about being evasive (the sidestep) in Rugby and how important it is:

Hi Wendy,

In your entry about "WNT Elite Camp Wraps up" you report that Women's National Team Head Coach Kathy Flores said.
"For the backs, it's understanding the importance of the agility work to make them as evasive .....as possible."

This is just a note to suggest you might like to visit so you can let your readers know about a fantastic new rugby resource that is available - my website!

It contains information on being evasive (the sidestep) that you will be hard pressed to find elsewhere.

I do hope you and your readers will visit rugby-sidestep-central and benefit from doing so.

The site has been mentioned recently and linked to by TotalFlanker and...is currently the 'featured website of the month' in the museum section of RugbyRelics.

Best Wishes,
Peter

So I checked out his site and really liked the information I found on it. He has some great videos:

His site also goes over the first sidestep's and a few moderns sidesteps. More than that his site has some great information on rugby in general! Make sure to check out his site and check out these other sites as well:

Julie McCoy Footwork Camps - Site appears to be down, but I'm sure there are some footwork camps happening out there. Email me if the site has moved, or if anyone has any info on new camps by Julie. Here are some photos of a camp from last year in Little Rock, AR, it was for the Women's National Team 7s.

Alex Williams Rugby Camps for Women - I have heard from a few teammates and bloggers that they attended a camp last year and they loved it! The site hasn't been updated in a bit, but they do say they are planning to host a few camps in the 2008 summer. Email me if you have any more info!

All Sports Footwork Camp - I found this site while searching around on Google for rugby footwork camps. I have never heard of it before, or talked to anyone about it. But it was mentioned on a few other blogs, so I thought I would include it. Has anyone been to one of the camps?

There are plenty of camps held overseas, so it is exciting to see that these types of camps and/or ideals are picking up in America. Anything we can do to elevate the level of rugby in the states is a good thing in my opinion! Let me know if I missed any camps or if you know of any others.

Today will dawn a new day here at Your Scrumhalf Connection. I mentioned earlier in the month that I would start having more videos on my site since The Girl and I had just purchased a new video camera! Well here is the first installment of matches from the 2008 Summer 7s season.

Can you tell I'm excited? And here is a great shot of me waiting to ref a game...and I am taping a game!

So here goes, I am still working out what quality I want to shoot the film at, editing it and all...so bear with me as I work this new thing out!

If you want to see what other adventures the Satiated Beavers are up to this year, make sure to check out the BEAVER DEN.

Satiated Beavers vs HARC for 3rd/4th - Dallas 7s 2008 - 1st Half



Satiated Beavers vs HARC for 3rd/4th - Dallas 7s 2008 - 2nd Half



Satiated Beavers vs Little Rock Semi-Final - Dallas 7s 2008 - 1st Half



Satiated Beavers vs Little Rock Semi-Final - Dallas 7s 2008 - 2nd Half




2008 Bloodfest 7s- Satiated Beavers vs A&M Phatties 1st Half



2008 Bloodfest 7s- Satiated Beavers vs A&M Phatties 2nd Half



2008 Bloodfest 7s- Old Valkyries vs A&M Phatties (*only 2nd half)



Keep an eye out for videos on the 2008 Debutante Ball...I haven't had time to work on those yet, but they are coming!

from USA Rugby:

NELSPRUIT, South Africa – In the second match of its South African tour, the Under-20 Women’s National Team shut out the Mpumalanga Provincial Side 87-0 on Tuesday, June 24, at the Nelspruit Rugby Stadium.

Utilizing size and strength, the USA side took an early lead and never looked back in its game against the provincial team predominantly comprised of university students, scoring as early as the second minute when Rachel Sommer touched down the USA’s first try.

Before the close of the first half, the USA U-20s would score six more tries, with Seymira Salami completing a hat trick, including returning a kickoff to score, and Jozy Gessner, Catherine Parkhill and Mallory Ives each contributing a try a piece. Parkhill also converted three and chipped in a penalty kick to help put the U.S. securely at 44-0 heading into the break.

Salami and Parkhill were also key contributors to the USA’s second half scoring run, Salami adding 15 more points to her tally after the break and Parkhill kicking for six additional points before the end. The USA’s Kayla Morisoli, Tyra McGrady, Blaine Martin and Alisa Ly also notched a try each, while BriAnna Barto kicked for one conversion to bring the final score up to 87-0.

“The girls put together a strong performance and played really well today. After changing the way we handled the breakdown, our team was more aggressive than in the opening match against South Africa,” USA Under-20 Women’s Team Head Coach Bryn Chivers said. “We made some minor adjustments in practice leading up to today’s game and held a lot more possession as a result.”

“Parkhill and Salami each had big games but it’s hard to single out players – the whole team had a great game. They all set goals and were really focused on achieving those,” Chivers added.

The U-20 WNT will finish off its three-match tour on Saturday, June 28 with a rematch against the South Africa Under-20 Women’s National Team following a 23-12 loss on Saturday, June 21.

USA U20 Team vs. Mpumalanga Provincial Side
1 Joanna Kitlinski (Grand Valley State)
2 Tayo Mafe (Michigan State)
3 Rachel Sommer (West Linn, OR)
4 Mallory Ives (Colorado State)
5 Brittany Rose (West Chester East)
6 Alisa Ly (U of Minnesota)
7 Jozy Gessner (Summit, CO)
8 Alex Hartley (Brown)
9 Catherine Parkhill (Armstrong, MN)
10 Lauren Danielsen (Summit, CO)
11 Blaine Martin (Brown)
12 Lisa Henneman (C) (Seattle Women)
13 Kayla Morisoli (San Jose State)
14 Seymira Salami (State College, PA)
15 Tyra McGrady (Indiana)
16 Jay Marie Hill (Stanford)
17 Anneke Brand (Texas Tech)
18 Maggie Reidy (Divine Savior, WI)
19 Candace Barley (Maryville, TN)
20 Brittany Woodard (Hyde School, DC)
21 BriAnna Barto (Summit, CO)
22 Sadie Anderson (Fort Collins, CO)
23 Marie Timm (USMA)
24 Katie Johnson (Hopkins, MN)

USA 87
Tries: Salami 6, Sommer, Gessner, Parkhill, Ives, Morisoli, McGrady, Martin, Ly
Conversions: Parkhill 6, Barto
Penalty kicks: Parkhill

**USA U-20 Women's National Team Game 1 vs South Africa, go here.

**USA U-20 Women's National Team Game 3 vs South Africa, go here.

**Bryn Chivers gives an update on events, venues etc for upcoming U-20 WNT Events, go here.

Ice Cream for a Good Cause

On Thursday, June 26th, from 6-9 pm, Ben & Jerry's in West Lake will donate 25% of its total sales to the Austin Valkyries Women's Rugby Club. That means you have the best excuse ever to come cool off and eat ice cream while helping an active group in our community!

Feel free to join some of your fellow "chunk-spelunkers" in taking on the Vermonster - a giant bucket of 20 scoops of ice cream with all the sundae toppings you can think of - brownies, cookies, bananas, chocolate fudge, whipped cream, etc. Join up with a friend and see if you can tame the beast in just 30 minutes - if you do, it's FREE and both eaters get a year's worth of Ben & Jerry's! If you lose, it costs $49.99 (25% of which will go to the rugby team) but you'll get the glory of at least having played. And having eaten a lot of sweets. I know some folks who are planning their flavors already...

Please tell all your friends, make it an ice cream happy hour after work, and come help the Valkyries raise some money!

I totally forgot that I never blogged about the Valkyries trip to Atlanta, read the recap from Bags below:

The Austin Valkyries closed their spring 15's season with a successful trip to Atlanta this weekend, earning a split decision against a strong Harlequins squad and having our usual bevy of adventures and mischief-making. Game & social reports are below:

Game 1 (Atlanta "A" v. mixed Valks side): 32-24 Atlanta

Austin showed the effects of travel and dispersed housing arrangements by starting the match awfully slowly...then again they don't call it HOT-lanta for nothing and the ref's HARC socks should have tipped us off that we'd be playing in a pea soup of humidity. Needless to say, Atlanta outweighed our pack by about 15 lbs/player and figured out they could maul on us...which set up several breaks of the overloaded Valkyrie backline. However, after about 20 minutes of that nonsense the Valkryies roared to life, dominating the final ten minutes of the first half to put up 12 unanswered points thanks to two tries from Heidi Whitman -- one up the weak side set up by a stolen scrum & pass from Meredith Bagley, and one around the outside corner showing her classic speed & swerves. Buoyed by this result the Valks played with a keen fury in the second half, finally hitting low and poaching the ball in rucks to narrow the Atlanta lead. Tries were scored in two classic Valkyrie styles: a kick from Meg Pace off the back of a ruck (under which your author was lying...) that was nimbly chased down by rookie wing Fanni who found Heidi in support, then hooker Shalay Mefford unleashed her slippery moves by squirting through a gap near a break down, popping to T-Hole, who found Heiny for a gorgeous try that elicited several "whoops" from the sidelines.

Game 2 (Atlanta "B" v. mixed Valks): 24-0 Austin

Having mastered the heat and withstood the initial Atlanta attack, the Valkyries dominated the Harlequins B side in our second match of the day. The Valks were camped out in the Atlanta end much of the first half, maintaining possession with strong pod play and direct pick-and-go's, forcing Atlanta to kick out of their own try zone a half-dozen times. Highlight try of the first half again involved the slick maneuvers of Shalay Mefford who, after a poached ruck (which, again, your author found herself underneath...) at about half field, found herself in the open on the far wing. Panic? No. Run straight into contact? No. Shalay, drawing on our 4 months of ball line warmups, cut directly at the defender marking Heidi, drawing her attention & flipping the ball to Heidi at the perfect moment for a flawlessly executed switch (or so I'm told, from my face-in-dirt ruck position). The second half continued apace, with a fun switcheroo between flyhalf Bags and scrumhalf Meg, as the Valks fought through heat exhaustion and Georgia fire ants to maintain their shutout of the 'Quins. Best try of this half had to be a gorgeous series of back line continuity that included about 5 players running close support with Bags feeding Meg at the 5 meter line for an untouched try. Atlanta defenders were literally left hanging at our ankles and even the ref complimented the play.

Kangaroo court & Costume report:

As we all know, the off-field activities are just as important, especially on road trips, as game scores and here again the Valks did not disappoint. We had 100% participation on our theme of "Creative Rugby Shirt you Always Wish you Had" with special acknowledgment to Meg's safety pinned nostalgia collection, Angela's use of Mona Lisa, Alexis's re-bus & drawing skills and Kitty's nod to presidential politics. Even Vaden, who ran into a touch of legal trouble about her shirt, made a great effort to win the drink up...And win we did!

Only about 25% of Atlanta have their costume on, and we also won a boat race AND sent more singers to the circle for rousing verses of our old favorites. Court commenced after the singing, with Rachel Kraft, Esq. rounding up all the Valkyrie criminals and Judge Bags overseeing punishments. Guilty parties entertained the crowd with interpretive dances, swing dances, 5 reasons rugby is the best sport ever, and 5 reasons Texas is better than France. Valkyrie court is in recess til next fall, and Beaver court will assume jurisdiction as soon as practice commences. Crimes & heinous violations at Men's Super 16s and Rookie party are eligible, however, for future prosecution...

All in all, a fantastic trip, a successful result, and a great cap to our spring season. We missed our absent teammates, be they stuck at work, healing from injury, or playing for the West 15's all-stars. We should all feel very optimistic for the fall 15s season -- we have depth, talent, commitment, leadership, coaching and vision for WINNING THE WEST and making nationals. Go Valks!!!

Yours in Rugby,
Bags

Pictures from Atlanta by Shalay Mefford here and here.

As promised last week here is the USA Rugby NCAA Video that was presented during the NASCs (ITTs) in PA this year. The video was shown during a few of the games at NASCs, and was awesome! So here it is and a few other highly recommended videos are listed as well:

USA Rugby's, Girls' Varsity Rugby OPPORTUNITY VIDEO (could not be embedded)


Women's NCAA Rugby

USA Rugby Women's Rugby Trailer



Other Rugby Video Mondays:
6/17/2008: USA Rugby Youth Promotional Trailer
6/9/2008: West All Star Senior Rugby Fun in the Pool!
6/2/2008: Rugby is Beauty
5/27/2008: Rugby in Dresses!
5/19/2005: AMAZING try in Rugby league
5/12/2008: Sharks vs Minnows
5/5/2008: Trent University Women's Rugby Highlight Reel

Read below for the latest news on the NCAA front:

U.S. Rugby Athletes Called Upon to Tackle Opportunity

Although rugby has been on the Emerging Sports List since 2002, it remained relatively unknown to athletic officials and administrators until last year when USA Rugby was granted a full-time staff member and budget for the initiative. As a result, USA Rugby has rapidly gained exposure and visibility to athletic administrations at a number of institutions, but needs the support of rugby athletes to spur faster progress and embrace this opportunity.

Currently, there are approximately 300 women's collegiate club teams participating within USA Rugby with nearly 7,500 women playing rugby in the United States at the collegiate club level. Although these numbers are much greater than other emerging sports, there has been surprisingly little movement by women’s collegiate rugby clubs to petition their universities for varsity status.

In order to gain more opportunity for female athletes in rugby within the NCAA, these numbers represent a critical factor known as "interest". There are thousands of comments circulating today on blogs, websites, articles and e-mails on the topic of rugby’s increasing popularity at the college level and how much the community strives to help it grow. Yet, one of the most prevalent questions posed to USA Rugby staff remains, "Why do we only have 4 NCAA women's teams with all the interest at the club level in college AND why aren’t more programs petitioning for varsity status?"

While the USA Rugby staff is the critical driver of the campaign to NCAA officials and athletic departments, the power truly lies with the students currently playing rugby.

Big 12 Universities Onboard

Some institutions housing successful club teams, including Texas A &M, the University of Colorado at Boulder and Texas Tech have all been part of the process since day one with several other Big 12 schools taking part in the process. Head Coach Will Riddle of the Texas A & M Women's Club program is among those convinced that NCAA varsity status would be a positive move for the institution in adding women's rugby.

"The involvement of the NCAA is vital to the continued growth of rugby in the United States. If Texas A&M and the other Big 12 institutions don't take advantage of this opportunity now, it will pass us by," Riddle stated. "There's far too much potential here to let that happen."

Teams like Texas A & M and the University of Colorado both tout nearly 40 player squads consistently, which speaks volumes in terms of gender equity and demand for women's rugby not only in conferences like the Big 12, but in the U.S.

Click here for the rest of this article.

Click here for the latest NCAA Newsletter from USA Rugby.