There is plenty of rugby this weekend in the United States. Clubs are getting their fall schedules amped up and so are some the Allstar and National teams.
USA Men Eagles vs. Munster – Aug 26, 20072pm at the Toyota Park, Bridegeview, Illinois
This is one game I wish I could go to, I still haven’t seen a professional international rugby game here in the United States. Promises to be a great game though!
National All Stars 7s Championship – Aug 26 & 27, 2007Park City, UTThis is always a fun tournament, its always HOT HOT and there are some of the best players in the United States playing at one venue. If you are anywhere near Utah you should totally check it out!
NA4 CanAm Tournament – August 4 – 30, 2007National Olympic Training Center Blaine, MN
I leave on Friday and get back on my birthday! We will be playing Canada twice and I am going to try and blog about the whole thing. Stay tuned.
I wanted to thank everyone for their support and kindness, it was awesome to receive all that love! I figured you all would want to hear about what happened…
It was blazing hot, I think I sweat more than Mere normally does :) I got the second fastest 40 time, of 5.13, and I didn’t even do too bad in the endurance test. I am now officially in the usa 7’s pool, with about 30 other girls. We’ll be trying out again in preparation for the international 7’s season tournaments. The ones that usa will be going to are San Diego 7’s (feb.), Hong Kong 7’s (march), and Amsterdam 7’s (may). Then following those events and 7’s ITT’s in Aug. 2008, they will put together a 7’s World Cup pool of about 16 players, which will be held in feb 2009, in Dubai. That leaves them about 6 months of just world cup players to train together.
It’s all very exciting! They talked about us being semi professional players and that we need to train and eat like it. Lay off the booze. We have to report injuries now to the coach, and coordinate treatments from our doctor with the team doctor. It’s so much more professional than it’s been in the past.
Thank you gals for the support, I’ll just keep needing more of it! I’ll have to keep training like
I’m Toya or something…We also fund raise like beasts because we travel so much. So I’m selling raffle tickets for San Diego 7’s, full expenses paid, airplane, fancy hotel, int’l men and womens rugby, in sunny SD! Tix are 10 ea, or 3 for 25, just let me know how many you want!
I’ll try and make it tues after class, but see you all thur for sure!
Last night was a bitter sweet night as it was the last night the Valks could attend the Touch League. We had really started to make some friendships with the men and it was a ton of fun! Not to say we will never see those guys again, but it was good rugby and a great workout. BUT, we start practice NEXT week so that is exciting as well!
Last night Bags and I played on the Hawaiian Team again and we played the a very talented team right out of the gate. They quickly scored a few tries and we were down at halftime. So we rallied with some quick teamwork doing the 3 quick pops and then trying to swing it around to get a score after they were left to scramble on defense. We came back within one but the ten minutes to a half wasn’t enough time to overcome the victory.
The second game we played the mobile turbo props…or the old Huns. They are quicker than they look and pretty savvy with the ball. We had to work hard to try and draw them on defense and make the holes. I think we lost by one try as well…so not to shabby of a night. Then there was one game left so everyone that wanted another game whored on and we subbed pretty liberally. Shalay, Mark and Jen played on those two teams all night and looked to be having a great time.
After the games we were invited to the drink up so we had a beer or two and chatted with the touch players. Since the Valkyries are looking for a coach I was hitting up anyone and everyone to make sure they all know we are looking to advance our program by appointing a coach by January. I found out some good info on some possibilities, so hopefully we can get something going.
It was a Satiated Beaver reunion of sorts in Massachusetts as six Texas Beavers joined four Florida first-time Beavs. Burnsy Burns Chamberlain, Meredith Baggity Bags, T- hole, Kitty, Krafty, and Rosalind gathered together in Boston last Thursday and Friday to see some sights and soak in the New England air before heading out to Eastham, MA for Cape Cods 7s.
Florida players Sarah G., Belkin, Sally, and Fish were introduced to the world of Beaverdom early Saturday morning as all players were asked to "Walk It Out" to determine the starting line-up.
After showing off their individual moves, the team swapped Superhero/Villain accessories in a white elephant fashion. The youngest players chose first and the older players were allowed to steal their accessories.
The team warmed up together for the first time and got off to a slow start. In their first match, they faced Union Alumni who ran from their first match right to the kick off for the match against the Beavs. The Union team was aggressive and ball hungry and the Beavers were still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. The match ended with a Union victory and we prepared for our next match. Belkin scored the one try for the Beavers to Union’s four tries.
Providence B-side was the next opponent and we Beavers were now wide awake and ready to play. There was good communication and the Beaver forwards took advantage of Providence’s lineouts as Fish stole several of their throws. Belkin scored two breakaway tries and Bags put in another try.
During the long break, Beaver trivia that began in June on the Beaver tour was completed. And the winner is…Rachel Kraft who just narrowly beat out Kitty for the top scorer in trivia.
Play resumed and we were scheduled to play Beantown B, a VERY strong team for the social bracket. They put up a great fight against us and at the end of the second half the score was tied 7 to 7. Bags was responsible for the score on a breakaway run and kicked her own conversion. The game went in to sudden death. The Beavers kicked off to Beantown B, attacking aggressively bearing down on the receiver where the ball was stopped in a tackle, going to a quick ruck. Beavers recovered the ball and began their offensive attack. Every Beaver touched the ball and was finally put in by Rosalind, diving in for the try.
A 2-1 record is a very respectable showing at such a largely competitive tournament. There was still a victory to come that would surpass what happened on the pitch. In the competitive bracket, NOVA beat select side teams and all the other competitive teams to take home the first place trophy.
The Beavers have been practicing the original Beaver song for over a year and were going to perform it for the skit competition at the social after the tournament. A re-mix had been added and the new Beavers were forced to practice over and over to tighten up the performance. NOVA was the reigning skit champ three years running and were not going to give up their title easily. I am not going to go in to too much detail because this write-up will be too long. The brief story is, NOVA had a very nice musical medley with fit and scantily clad players. Yet, they were no match for the performance titled, "We’re Bringing Beavers Back."
The Beavers waited patiently on stage with bowed heads for the crowd to quiet. Once silence fell over the audience we instantly went in to "Beaver One, Beaver All…" The crowd was completely enraptured by the performance and they remained hushed to hear the lyrics. The re-mix followed the freestyle dancing after "Beaver Nine" and we offered up their re-make of "Sexy Back." Unfortunately, there is no Youtube video to share, but it was amazing and yes, the crowd went wild with the T-hole knee slide, and synchronized group ending. The referees acted as the judges and quickly had their decision ready. Turboprops took third place and NOVA started to chant their name, but quickly drowned out. Somewhere in the front near the stage ruggers started chanting "Beavers, Beavers, Beavers, Beavers!" The tournament director announced the second place finishers in the skit contest, NOVA. BEAVERS WIN! BEAVERS WIN!
We were surrounded for the rest of the night by admirers and fans. We were offered women, money, and clothing for any piece of Beaver gear with which we would be willing to part. It was quite amusing at first, but as the night wore on we began to tire and wanted to just be alone with our Beaver clan. How does Paris Hilton deal with the stardom?
The next day we headed to the Provincetown to officially complete the Beaver tour 2007 that stretched from Coast-to-Coast. There were cool shops and a wild wolf ate T-hole. May she rest in peace.
It was a Satiated Beaver reunion of sorts in Massachusetts as six Texas Beavers joined four Florida first-time Beavs. Burnsy Burns Chamberlain, Meredith Baggity Bags, T- hole, Kitty, Krafty, and Rosalind gathered together in Boston last Thursday and Friday to see some sights and soak in the New England air before heading out to Eastham, MA for Cape Cods 7s.Florida players Sarah G., Belkin, Sally, and Fish were introduced to the world of Beaverdom early Saturday morning as all players were asked to "Walk It Out" to determine the starting line-up.
After showing off their individual moves, the team swapped Superhero/Villain accessories in a white elephant fashion. The youngest players chose first and the older players were allowed to steal their accessories.
The team warmed up together for the first time and got off to a slow start. In their first match, they faced Union Alumni who ran from their first match right to the kick off for the match against the Beavs. The Union team was aggressive and ball hungry and the Beavers were still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. The match ended with a Union victory and we prepared for our next match. Belkin scored the one try for the Beavers to Union’s four tries.
Providence B-side was the next opponent and we Beavers were now wide awake and ready to play. There was good communication and the Beaver forwards took advantage of Providence’s lineouts as Fish stole several of their throws. Belkin scored two breakaway tries and Bags put in another try.
During the long break, Beaver trivia that began in June on the Beaver tour was completed. And the winner is…Rachel Kraft who just narrowly beat out Kitty for the top scorer in trivia.
Play resumed and we were scheduled to play Beantown B, a VERY strong team for the social bracket. They put up a great fight against us and at the end of the second half the score was tied 7 to 7. Bags was responsible for the score on a breakaway run and kicked her own conversion. The game went in to sudden death. The Beavers kicked off to Beantown B, attacking aggressively bearing down on the receiver where the ball was stopped in a tackle, going to a quick ruck. Beavers recovered the ball and began their offensive attack. Every Beaver touched the ball and was finally put in by Rosalind, diving in for the try.
A 2-1 record is a very respectable showing at such a largely competitive tournament. There was still a victory to come that would surpass what happened on the pitch. In the competitive bracket, NOVA beat select side teams and all the other competitive teams to take home the first place trophy.
The Beavers have been practicing the original Beaver song for over a year and were going to perform it for the skit competition at the social after the tournament. A re-mix had been added and the new Beavers were forced to practice over and over to tighten up the performance. NOVA was the reigning skit champ three years running and were not going to give up their title easily. I am not going to go in to too much detail because this write-up will be too long. The brief story is, NOVA had a very nice musical medley with fit and scantily clad players. Yet, they were no match for the performance titled, "We’re Bringing Beavers Back."
The Beavers waited patiently on stage with bowed heads for the crowd to quiet. Once silence fell over the audience we instantly went in to "Beaver One, Beaver All…" The crowd was completely enraptured by the performance and they remained hushed to hear the lyrics. The re-mix followed the freestyle dancing after "Beaver Nine" and we offered up their re-make of "Sexy Back." Unfortunately, there is no Youtube video to share, but it was amazing and yes, the crowd went wild with the T-hole knee slide, and synchronized group ending. The referees acted as the judges and quickly had their decision ready. Turboprops took third place and NOVA started to chant their name, but quickly drowned out. Somewhere in the front near the stage ruggers started chanting "Beavers, Beavers, Beavers, Beavers!" The tournament director announced the second place finishers in the skit contest, NOVA. BEAVERS WIN! BEAVERS WIN!
 
We were surrounded for the rest of the night by admirers and fans. We were offered women, money, and clothing for any piece of Beaver gear with which we would be willing to part. It was quite amusing at first, but as the night wore on we began to tire and wanted to just be alone with our Beaver clan. How does Paris Hilton deal with the stardom?
The next day we headed to the Provincetown to officially complete the Beaver tour 2007 that stretched from Coast-to-Coast. There were cool shops and a wild wolf ate T-hole. May she rest in peace.
Saturday dawned early with SUN! If you haven’t heard about the Central Texas weather, this wouldn’t sound very exciting. Basically it has rained 40 days and 40 nights here, all the rivers are over flowing and we have flood watches almost every day. So the fact that is actually was sunny all day in Corpus is pretty crazy.
Traci, Shalay, Amy B and I had camped out Friday night on the beach right across from where the tournament would be played the next day. We drove down late Friday night and put our tents up in the dark. The mosquito’s mistakenly thought we were a HUGE feast and pretty much ate us alive. It was late so we decided to put the tents up and hit the sack. We slept for a few hours and then were jolted awake when it started raining again, it rained like a monsoon for probably about two hours…and if you have ever slept in a tent when it is raining that hard, you know it is hard to sleep.
So I decided I couldn’t sleep anymore and I got out of the tent. The sand was so saturated that it was pooling and creating random lakes all over the beach. A HUGE lake that was about 20 feet by 10 feet had developed right by Shalay and Amy’s tent…the moonlight bouncing off the rippling water was amazing.
At this point everyone was awake because Jake was bounding around in the tent like a crazy dog because he wanted to be outside with me. So we all woke up and then the feast began again…so we decided to drive to a gas station and get some serious bug spray this time. We also picked up some snack and headed back to the camp site. We still weren’t tired so we decided to take a walk along the ocean and check things out. Arming ourselves with bug spray and snacks we braved the elements. The DEET in the deep woods bug spray must have worked because the walk was very comfortable and beautiful!
Here’s a video of Jake chasing a ghost crab on the beach…he was very intrigued but scared of the white/transparent crab.
We finally got tired again around 4am and decided to try sleeping as it was getting cold again and the rain looked like it was coming in again. We actually slept till 8am and woke up to the Corpus Christi Rugby Team working on the pitches.
We ate breakfast and then all the teams started showing up, there were TONS of men’s teams and four women’s teams. The games were very exciting and lots of fun to watch. Its always good to see the sand flying as girls make tackles and the bare feet churn up the sand.
The tournament directors had assigned a referee to the women’s games but he was often late for the games and let a lot of dangerous calls go, so the for a few of the games I got be a referee. It was a lot of fun and I realized that I enjoy it.
The women’s semi-final teams decided that they wanted to play debutante style where the scrums were boat racing, line-outs were the dizzy bat and kickoffs were drunken handstands. They played about twenty minutes and it was a ton of fun! I made sure to call knock-ons that didn’t happen, improper use of the rugby ball and any other rule I could think of. It was a ton of fun!
That night we decided that we were tired of being eaten alive, sun burnt and wanted a nice clean bed. So we got a hotel room and crashed out since we hadn’t slept much the night before. It was glorious!
I will post pictures as soon as they get uploaded, Shalay and Amy Wolfrey both had cameras out there.
So on Tuesday at 7s practice we were doing some defensive work for the new rookies we have picked up this summer. At first Bags had us doing just a small grid, similar to the one you often see used for 2 V 1. Basically your have two lines stand right next to each other and one is offense and the other is defense.
She would call 1 or 2 and that determined the type of defensive work you would be doing. If she called the number 1 your would be doing a close in type tackle where the defense is often setup and ready for you. Usually the grid is only a few feet wide and is super small.
If she called number 2 your were given a bit more freedom and this was simulating the defense not totally being setup and you have a bit more space for creating.
At first we simply talked about using the sideline as your ally (the last man) and using out of bounds to your advantage. Bags also pointed out that using the sideline is great, but you have to use it appropriately. Meaning that you mark your defensive player on their inside shoulder and this forces them to work outwards. If you get overzealous and mark their outside shoulder they can read that and simply cut in on you. Then you have wasted the sideline as an advantage.
The drill was going great, but we noticed that some of the newer players were either over committing or under committing. So I decided to share a theory that Julie McCoy taught us the first year I played West 7s select side. I thought it was an excellent theory and have used it many times in a game.
Ice, Sub and & Super Pressure
These three theories can be used all one or used independently of each other. Be imaginative!
Ice- This is the first step of the whole defensive theory: Imagine your team has just scrummed and is running a back play where the fly half kicks the ball into the other team’s territory. As a team you must advance with haste in your channels and once the player with the ball is located, you must ice. Basically this means settle, get together in a straight line, impenetrable and working together. It does not mean settle as in sit back on your heels and let the action pass you by…it means more to attack on defense once you have settled your team together.
This tactic is often used on kickoffs as well, your team must first tackle the opponent with the ball. Then organizing yourselves to attack on defense to get the ball back commences.
Sub- This step of the defensive process is best if I describe it in a situation: Imagine your team is kicking off and you are the "sniper" or "attacker" for your team. This sniper is usually one of your best tacklers and pretty quick. Their whole job is to make a great tackle with speed, agility and accuracy. Basically they are in charge of putting the fear in the other team from the very first hit of the game. So where does the Ice part come in? (*granted, not all teams use a sniper, so imagine this scenario in a few different ways if that helps)
Ice means approaching the situation with speed, agility and accuracy but at the last minute breaking down and pausing. We are not talking about pausing and stopping all your momentum. This theory is that you access where your opponent is, how high they are, if they are going to put a move on you…etc ALL in the split second before you lay the girl out.
This skill takes plenty of practice because if you take too long and reach the realm of hesitation you will be side stepped and out played in an instant. If you attack to quickly you also risk the embarrassment of overshooting your target. So practice is a must!
Super- This technique in the process if best described as a suppressing attack. This would most often be used in a one on one situation or where someone is chasing down a kick. It is just what is sounds like, a super attack at full speed and full force. You have all seen it when a fullback gets laid out right as they catch the ball by a speedy opponent. This is the same theory, you zero in on the target and without hesitation take care of the problem.
If you were to use all these theories together it would best be described using a kickoff again. Your team chases down the kick in a super defense, closing down all their opportunities. Then you move to a sub defense where you are seeing what lay they are running, if the play is stopped then you simply run an ice defense where you are settled and poised to attack.
I am not an expert of these theories, but have used them often and have found them valuable to pass on to other players. I explained them to the best of my ability and tried to make them applicable to certain situations. Let me know how I did!
Once again we have an eye witness to Cape Fear 7s in Wilmington, NC, our very own Heidi Whitman:
Right, so, bad wifi at our hotel, no pool either,what’s a girl to do?! And here’s the rest of the story: Anything else that happened Saturday is a blur. I know that our spirits did not match our record, that is to say that the west girlie’s were gellin’ and finding our game and loving it! We started making connections, and had some lovely runs made by superstars Melissa McKibben and Jenny Kuchar (or cooch, love it!). Meredith Bagley was voted by the team as player of the day for her steadfastness and scrappy play at scrumhalf. We were in high spirits and couldn’t wait to get back onto the pitch Sunday morning.
Hooo-ee! Sunday morning we were still in a position to make it to the finals. First we just had to beat Northeast, defending champs, to move on. We were ready for the challenge! We came out fierce, the Northeast definitely did not know what hit them. How you gonna bench eagle starters when everyone knows West is the dark horse at these events! That’s alright. The game started off great, real back and forth. The NE hit the rucks harder than any of the other teams this weekend, but you know what: we hit back. I don’t know if we lost any balls going into contact. Our defense slid, and our offense sliced and caught them on their back foot. Finally we make a run at it and we are so close we can spit on the try line. There’s a ruck here, another there, and Meredith Bagley picks up the ball…the NE defense is already running to the support, to the people she is going to pass it to. Ok, Mere says she hops over the ruck and untouched into the try zone with the first points of the day.
Before the half is over, the NE capitalizes on a mistake and scores to tie the game (don’t ask for details, I’ve blanked them out). Second half is more of the same, one more mistake by us that the NE used to their advantage. One missed tackle, man. L 7-12, but that was a hot game. Final game of the day pitted us old ladies against the spry wiles of the Atlantis 7’s team. That game featured the crazy verticals of Angie Hurt disrupting line outs, McKibben scoring on sudden death overtime, and I got to level 3 tackle a gal so hard her kids are limping around! Cooch received Player of the day for Sunday.
There is plenty of rugby this weekend in the United States. Clubs are getting their fall schedules amped up and so are some the Allstar and National teams.
NA4 CanAm Tournament – August 4 – 30, 2007National Olympic Training Center Blaine, MN
