We want videos!

Wendy Young | November 28, 2007, 1:01 am

We want videos!

&nbsp This and more rugby blogs can be found at http://westrugby.blogspot.com. Thanks!

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Remembering...

Wendy Young | November 28, 2007, 1:01 am

Remembering…

So today I was browsing the rugby blogosphere and fell upon a particular blog post. Chasing Down Life is blogging about her devastating ACL injury (this is her 2nd ACL injury). Upon reading her last few posts over the last week, I almost welled up in tears at work.



I’ve been there. The utter disappointment, rage, torture, more disappointment, realizations…thoughts…sprials…its more than the pain of the surgery and the injury…its everything else that is devastating. Anyone who has been there knows what it feels like…



Her post made me think about my physical and mental being during the recovery of my ACL injury…and lets just say it wasn’t pretty. I tore my ACL on September 24, 2005 and had surgery a exactly a month later (I had severe bone bruising…basically I had tiny fractures in my bones). I too, did not tear anything but the ACL, no meniscus, PCL, LCL or whatever. The surgery was easy enough, I had plenty of pain at night and took plenty of pain medication. I guess I was lucky in most respects, but my frustration came from never really being injured. Sure I had sprained an ankle, tweaked a hamstring…but had never been down and out for more than a month.



I had never really faced myself in the throes of depression and injury. I continued to attend rugby practice every Tuesday and Thursday night and helped with the team where I could. The nights were the worst as I had terrible dreams of tearing my ACL again, dreams of never being able to walk normally and dreams of never playing rugby again. I am a tough girl, but my mind was trying to betray me in my sleep.



In the end I made a full recovery and played my first rugby game about 4 months after surgery (I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS!). The reality of it was that I couldn’t be kept off the pitch…at 3 months, the most critical time of the healing process, I was at practice playing touch rugby. If I had stayed away from rugby during my recovery process, I really think that my mind might have won. The depression, rage, frustration…it might have taken me over.



As I write that statement, I am angry that I sound weak…or that I would have given in. But unless you have been there…you wouldn’t know.



Stay strong Chasing Down Life and don’t let it beat you!

This and more rugby blogs can be found at http://westrugby.blogspot.com. Thanks!

Another Post about the West...

Wendy Young | November 28, 2007, 1:00 am

Another Post about the West…

The teams in the West are currently looking over the current league system and if it is beneficial or detrimental to teams &amp competition in the West. My post earlier this month talked about several topics including the geography of the West and about the costs of playing in the West. These two issues combined are hurting players, coaches and teams beyond measure.



Current talks now between teams are revolving about maybe moving back to the Best of the West Tournament, an East/West or South/North format, or a Tier 1 and Tier 2 situation or maybe a few other ideas.

The pros are that each team has 6 high level games that they are required and &quotget to&quot play. We are bolstering the competition in the West and helping ourselves grow as a result.



The cons of this format: Teams have 3 home games and 3 away games in a year. These are required league matches and almost all require a plane ticket. The Colorado teams are the lucky ones here as they have three teams within driving distance of each other. Austin has the worst case scenario here (and not just because I play for them) but because we are geographically the farthest away from the rest of the teams in the league. It is literally impossible for us not to purchase a plane ticket to play a different team in our league. (Buy a plane ticket or miss a day of work bc we have to drive 10 hours or more.)

This is basically a tournament where each team works to beat all the other teams. I believe there is some seeding that happens to predetermine your standings for the tournament (I have only played in one of these tournaments).



This tournament style can have its problems though, as it all depends on your team that one day. In the league format you have several chances to prove yourself, at the Best of the West Tournament you lose, you are out.

This topic has been discussed mostly because it is a similar format to what a lot of men’s teams do. Basically you draw a line down the middle or across the horizon and each region plays the teams in its region. However this format greatly benefits Colorado again because they would just have to dominate Black Ice and Boulder…who are currently ranked the lowest in the West League. Either way we try to split up the league it doesn’t seem fair and it always benefits one team or another.

This idea came across the email this morning…and has some potential in my mind. Basically we would go off the current rankings so:



Tier 1

1) Glendale

2) Jazz

3) Sabres



Tier 2

4) Austin

5) Black Ice

6) Boulder



Tier 1 would play the teams within and would fight for the right to represent the West (right now we have 2 seeds, but both seeds will be challenged in 2008). Tier 2 would fight amongst itself to be #1, as the #1 in Tier 2 would move up and the #3 in Tier 1 would drop down. Almost identical to the current National All Star Championships that we have every summer.



A few new ideas were introduced as well, could the #1 Tier 2 team challenge a team in Tier 1 for their spot? Also, how would the D2 teams fit into the mix (the West is working on sending a team to the D2 tournametn in 2008)? Could they challenge the lowest ranked team? There were several other ideas, but these two were of greatest concern to me.



If the West was to adopt this new format, does that mean that Austin, Black Ice and Boulder areut of luck from the 2008 Round of 16? Or do the Sabres drop down and Austin moves up? Then the bottom 3 teams have no chance at Round of 16?

Please leave thoughts in the comments, as I believe we are all open to new ideas and thoughts…



So in summary of all these ideas, there are more questions than there are answers. I just know that the current league system is costing teams more money and is stretching our team officers, players and budget. I think that all this talk is good, and I hope we can all come together to agree on a solution that builds the West up and the teams in it.

This and more rugby blogs can be found at http://westrugby.blogspot.com. Thanks!

USA Rugby D1 National Championship PAST WINNERS

Wendy Young | November 13, 2007, 12:41 am

USA Rugby D1 National Championship PAST WINNERS

Interesting comments going on at Goff about who has won the D1 National Championships in the past…here is what they have come up with:

79 – Florida State Univ

80 – Florida State Univ

81 – Belmont Shore

82 – Beantown

83 – Beantown

84 – Florida State Univ

85 – Florida State Univ

86 – Beantown

87 – Beantown

88 – Minnesota

89 – BASH

90 – Belmont Shore

91 – Beantown

92 – BASH

93 – BASH

94 – Berkeley

95 – BASH

96 – Beantown

97 – Berkeley

98 – Berkeley

99 – Berkeley

00 – Berkeley

01 – Berkeley

02 – Berkeley

03 – Berkeley

04 – Berkeley

05 – Berkeley

06 – New York

07 – Berkeley

I guessed that BASH was San Fransisco, cause thats what Google told me…Cool stats!

This and more rugby blogs can be found at http://westrugby.blogspot.com. Thanks!

Geography of USA Rugby Women’s Rugby D1 Teams

Wendy Young | November 7, 2007, 10:07 pm

Geography of USA Rugby Women&rsquos Rugby D1 Teams

A reader of this post had asked for an updated map with color coding for all the teams, and I think I have gotten it right. Let me know if I didn’t because I did it really fast and may have made a mistake!

Also if you are interested, the map is &quotlive&quot at Google Maps here. Some of the place markers are not on their specific location because otherwise some of them were stacked. They are spread outs o you can see them better.

**Thanks for all the comments my rugger friends, looks like I may have it all cleared up now! Is Keystone really in the Northeast and not Marfu? Weird…



This and more rugby blogs can be found at http://westrugby.blogspot.com. Thanks!

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Thoughts Revolving Around Round of 16

Wendy Young | November 3, 2007, 3:17 am

Thoughts Revolving Around Round of 16

So I have several trains of thought today about rugby, West rugby and Round of 16. After the rather anti-climatic weekend for West rugby and all the teams involved, I really think we have to face facts. What are those facts?

1) West Region Geographically:



We are a HUGE union with a HUGE geographic challenge. Any D1 team in the West that wants to play a highly competitive team (besides CO) has to drive over 6 hours or fly to a destination. I added up how much I spent on plane tickets and driving this year and it was well over $1000. This total does not include any out of state tournaments either, because we simply couldn’t afford to attend!

Yes, this is a challenge with living in the West…but should that challenge by shunned off just because we live in the West? I think not, and the solution is not to move to another territory although that option is tempting! I think we should stick by our union and work to improve it.

We can work on building a D2 program so that teams that aren’t ready to work towards D1 at least have a championship to play for, even if USA Rugby doesn’t recognize it. We also need to start working on building youth/high school in all parts of the West. Colorado has a good program going and Texas is just starting one…these programs will do all good things and most importantly will bring rugby to our cities.

2) Current D1 West League Schedule:I came to Austin right after the team’s had decided to do away with the Best of the West Tournament. I really think this was a good test to try out, but I think we have found that it has not helped at all. I believe one of the main ideas behind the switch was guaranteeing high level matches throughout the year and not having a tournament style. I really think this idea was thought out and implemented well, but the end result was not what was desired. Teams are spending twice as much money and traveling way more.

Where before a team may travel to Seattle, New York or across the country, now there are no funds to do any kind of traveling besides the league matches. I believe this is a detriment to our teams and I wish the league schedule would return to the Best of the West format.

3) Result of all This:So what is all this adding up to? The West will more than likely have two seeds challenged and will have one chance to challenge for a seed. If all goes well, we keep 3 seeds, if all hell breaks loose the West could end up without a seed. Not going to say it will happen, but lets keep an open mind here. The West is in some serious danger here, we could lose all our seeds and have to do something dramatic.

4) West Select SideSo we haven’t even touched on the NA4 schedule that is going to be a financial burden and more on the unions now. Basically if you haven’t heard (amazing how many teams haven’t heard…) USA Rugby is placing more emphasis on the Women’s National Team and the Territorial stuff leading up to it. They are doing away with the traditional ITT’s or All Stars Tournament and moving towards the NA4 [correction…duh I am an idiot…they are having ITT’s]. Check out these blogs from a few months ago for more details: NA4 Details &amp NASC to become NA4.

So the whole idea is that each territorial will have two &quothome&quot games (where is home exactly?) and one away game. These are set to happen in the Spring season and so most teams are assuming that League season should happen in the Fall season. The costs are tripling here if you aren’t counting…the finances for this are getting scary. If I did the math really quickly for me personally I am counting:



2-3 West D1 League games (away)

2 West Select Side games(home)

1 West Select Side game (away)

1NASC (away)

and if I go far enough…

1 NA4 Tournament

1-2 possible overseas tours while preparing for the Rugby World Cup

Scary stuff.

So those are the thoughts that are running through my head today…not very good stuff. I have been in the West Territory for almost 7 years now and it is becoming more and more daunting to play here.

This and more rugby blogs can be found at http://westrugby.blogspot.com. Thanks!

Round of 16...Round-Up!

Wendy Young | October 31, 2007, 3:32 am

Round of 16…Round-Up!

Haha, I thought the title was pretty clever, hopefully you will too! I thought I would give a little tidbit about each game and it might be rugby related or not! Enjoy!

9:30am: Beantown vs KC Jazz 64 to 5

This game was the first game of the day and nerves seemed to be a factor for each team. The first twenty minutes were also helter skelter as the ball was a little wet from the dew on the ground. Beantown was the first team to calm down and start to control the pace of the game. They did a great job of pounding the forwards up and then sending the centers through the middle. Great game with the Jazz coming out pretty beaten up and defeated.



10 am: SD Surfers vs Atlanta 5 to 20

I was touch judging at the 11:00am game so I don’t really know what happened at this game, but I could hear the crowd yelling as big runs were made and big tackles were hit. The Surfers did very well over all in this game and their next game though. Atlanta didn’t look as sharp as they usually do, but they had some big runs that resulted in big tries.



11 am: Nova vs TC Amazons 17 to 20

This game was incredibly tense and awesome to watch. I was touch judging, so the action was always right in front of me. The scoring was pretty much one right after another and it came down to the wire. Nova drove and drove but it seemed that penalties were really the downfall of this game.



11:30am: ORSU vs Minn Valkyries 17 to 7

I was still touch judging for this game so I couldn’t watch any of it but the end…but I heard about it. Talk about a HUGE upset Evidently Minnesota could never get anything rolling on offense and ORSU was firing on all cylinders. The 7 points that Minnesota scored was in the last few minutes of the game and ORSU controlled the game.



12:30pm: Philly vs N Shore 29 to 16

This game was the game I was looking forward to all day. I really thought Philly was going to be the sleeper that surprised everyone. They have been working hard to recruit good athletes and plenty of U19 &amp U23 players and that will pay off eventually. These two teams played a very physical match and it was thrilling to watch.



1 pm: Glendale vs Berkeley 0 to 58

During this game I was touch judging the 2pm fight, so once again I didn’t get to see it. I did hear the crowd yell though when Berkely put a try in about 2 minutes into the game. Those that watched the game said that Glendale played hard but that they were shut down completely on defense and couldn’t get anything going on offense. I had never seen the back line of Jaime Lange, Janay Lake, Lynelle Kugler etc and was excited to see it…but evidently they couldn’t do much because Berkeley was so stifling on defense.



2 pm: Keystone vs Furies 14 to 0

This game was great because I had never seen Keystone play before. Keystone came out of the gate swinging and scored pretty quickly. DC never seemed to get anything rolling as they were constantly backed up and having to kick for touch. This game was also physical and the penalties were pretty constant as each team was fighting hard for points. DC never gave up but never could get in the try zone.



2:30pm: New York vs Mudhens 67 to 10

This was the last game of the day and as you can see from the score New York took care of business. They had a great wide game all day and utilized the tactical kicking with great precision. The Mudhens fought the whole game but couldn’t contain New York’s continuity and beautiful rucks.

Beantown vs Atlanta 45 to 0

Clearly Beantown had a handle on this game as they made quick work of Atlanta…the score says most of the game. What the score doesn’t say is that Atlanta fought hard, but couldn’t make it happen. Great game even with the score being what it is.



MN Valkyries vs NOVA 19 to 5

This game was one of the lower scoring games of the day, but was one of the most exciting of the day. The Valkyries clearly wanted to let everyone know that they were still one of the best teams in the Midwest and they played that way. Nova didn’t give up though and was a thorn in their side the whole game. They caused knock on after knock on and almost had several beautiful tries.



Surfers vs Jazz 20 to 12

This game was one of my favorites of the morning…Since Belmont didn’t have their internationals to help them win their league games, I believe the best team in the South was present. I was also extremely excited to hear that the Surfers did it with their own strengths and merits. The Jazz played very well but it got away from them in the last 10 minutes of the game. Making it worse, the Surfer suffered a sin bin and won the game with 14 players on the field.



ORSU vs Amazons 12 to 24

This game was played very smart by ORSU, they had seen the Amazons strong back line and clearly took note of it. They chose to keep the ball in the forward and to pound the ball down the field, slowly opening up things on the outside. But the Amazons were able to work around that and started working the ball up the middle as well and around the outside.



N Shore vs Glendale 49 to 12

This game was also highly anticipated for me as the West had already lost a match this morning and we were putting our hope on Glendale. The match was strong as Glendale had several great runs but couldn’t keep N Shore out of the try zone.



Berkeley vs Philly 31 to 10

This game was one of the more highly anticipated in my opinion. Philly played hard and I thought they might have won if the game was only 30 minutes long. It wasn’t a fitness issue, it was more a physical issue in my opinion. Berkeley rucked hard all day long and it was a physical match to say the least. Philly had several opportunities to score again but decision at the back of the ruck seemed to take to long.



Mudhens vs DC 7 to 41

I didn’t see this game as I was watching the Berkeley vs Philly game, but the score pretty says that it was a blowout.



New York to Keystone 31 to 7

Again New York played the last game of the day and the crowd was pretty amped up on rugby at this point. Keystone came out to win and looked strong in the first 30 minutes but then they seemed to wither pretty quickly. New York kept pounding them in the forwards and used their brute strength to control the game.

**Pictures were taken by Ashley Mefford of the Austin Valkyries. She is still working on editing them, so keep checking back for more pictures and albums.

This and more rugby blogs can be found at http://westrugby.blogspot.com. Thanks!

Round of 16 - Day 1

Wendy Young | October 31, 2007, 3:32 am

Round of 16 – Day 1

MATCH SCHEDULE:



Saturday, October 27

9:30am: Beantown vs KC Jazz 64 to 5

10 am: SD Surfers vs Atlanta 5 to 20

11 am: Nova vs TC Amazons 17 to 20

11:30am: ORSU vs Minn Valkyries 17 to 7

12:30pm: Philly vs N Shore 29 to 16

1 pm: Glendale vs Berkeley 0 to 58

2 pm: Keystone vs Furies 14 to 0

2:30pm: New York vs Mudhens 67 to 10



Sunday, October 28

8:30am KC Jazz vs SD Surfers

9:00am: Beantown vs Atlanta

10:00am: NOVA vs Minn Valkyries

10:30am: Amazons vs ORSU

11:30a: N Shore vs Glendale

12:00pm: Philly vs Berkeley

1:00pm: Furies vs Mudhens

1:30pm: Keystone v New York



We arrived at Burr Field this morning with temperatures in the low 50’s and a bit of dew on the ground. As you can see from my &quotmountain outfit&quot as my girlfriend called me…I was cold! But soon the sun came out from behind the trees and we had a BEAUTIFUL rugby day ahead of us.



The pitches were lined perfectly and the hard Texas ground was just begging to be touched by all the rugby glory out there. The first few games of the day were highly contested and were very intense. I touch judged two of the games today and played &quottrainer&quot for the rest. Need something taped? Wendy can do that!



Over all I think the first day or Round of 16 included some GREAT rugby and an even better crowd. Austinites were out in force and we appreciate the support from the local community here.



One of the great ideas coming from the tournament in my opinion was the &quotanti-bacterial stations&quot the Austin Blacks put together. See the picture on the right for a visual: basically its a bucket turned over, with a lovely white towel over it and two anti-bacterial bottles for our sanitation purposes. Cute right?



Also we the Austin Valkyries are pretty excited about the raffle we put together. The items are wide and varied from Mary Kay makeup to the sweetest All Black Jersey we have ever seen! Come on out and buy an armful of ticket…yes you can bring you lock’s long arms…for $10.



Look for more results tomorrow afternoon.

This and more rugby blogs can be found at http://westrugby.blogspot.com. Thanks!