Louisville Rugby Football Club

Louisville vs Pittsburgh - September 22, 2007

Congrats to the team on another big win. I wasn’t able to be at the game this week, and whenever that happens—and we win—my phone usually blows up minutes after the match. I got no calls last Saturday, so I was a bit worried, but it was great news to hear we had handled our business.

We also accomplished several goals beyond staying in the playoff hunt. First, we defended our home field, and officially completed the first season at the new field undefeated. Secondly, we reduced our average points allowed per game to under 20, which was a goal I hadn’t shared with the team but have been tracking over the course of the season. This means we are denying our opponents the bonus points given for 4 or more tries, and I feel good about our chances at victory if we can hold the other team under 20. Obviously, this is an averaged number, but it is a pretty good indication of how we are playing in defense. Finally, we continue to blood new players and build out depth and continuity of play. The club is moving in the right direction.

In regard to the playoffs, we remain solidly in the hunt. I spoke with the VP of Competitions this weekend, and the playoff format is as follows: the top four teams advance, play one game on OCTOBER 27TH (GET THIS DATE ON YOUR SCHEDULE), with the winners of those games representing the Eastern Division in the Midwest Final Four next Spring. The top two teams will host the opening round playoff games.

As it stands, I expect Rochester and the Detroit Tradesmen to win their leagues and qualify. In our league, I expect Indy to win since they beat us and the primary tiebreaker is head-to-head results, but if we can win out and get bonus points each game, we still have a chance at the league crown. We are currently tied with Toledo in the race for the final play-off spot. We just need to keep winning and the trip to Valley this week is a critical game.

Shout-outs this week go to Noel, Jeremy and Paul, who all scored and make us a dangerous team. We are winning the physical battle up front, have some very good halfbacks directing the flow of the game, so the final piece of the puzzle is having the outside backs that are ball hungry and have the ability to put the ball in the end-zone. Great stuff.

Forward shout outs go to Rob and Wayne, who are logging a lot of minutes for us in the front row, and to Bus who is back on the scene and helped with our depth in the tight five. This weeks MOM goes to Marty Wissing, who played a very active game at scrumhalf. Thanks go out to our captains, Chris and Shaun, for their leadership during the week and on game day, and a great big HEE HAW to the team for hitting the half-century mark on the new scoreboard provided by Bobby Rueff and Rueff Signs. How cool is that.

The stats this week are a bit sketchy, but we ended up about even on the penalty count—of which we had 6, and that is about right as long as they are aggressive penalties—and we ended up about even in balls won lost in tackles/rucks. The number was low, at about 3 each way, which shows this game was not nearly as physical as the Indy match. We need that high standard of physical play if we are going to continue to win games, and need to make the physical commitment to punish teams regardless of the score. We also had 11 knock-ons, which speaks to a lack of concentration. I know we got on top early and the weather was very hot, but these are areas we need to focus on and continue to improve.

I would also like to start practice at 6:00 pm (starting this Thursday, 10-4) due to the loss of daylight. We can play touch for a half hour, and then train from 6:30 to 8:00 pm.

STAT-LINE:

TRIES:

Marty, converted by Shaun
Tyson, converted by Shaun
Jeremy, converted by Shaun
Noel
Paul, converted by Shaun
Noel again
Fetch, in his 4th decade with the club!!!
Shaun, converted.

Full Time
Final Score: 50-8

I don’t have the breakdowns by half, but we did hold Pittsburgh without a try in the second half, which is awesome and shows some pride in our defense. Great job all around, enjoy the bye week and I’ll see you soon.

Louisville vs Pittsburgh - September 22, 2007

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