I am so excited for this final, the host country against the defending champions. Who could have asked for more drama and excitement? Well maybe New Zealand…

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12 hours at the airport. 12 hours of sleep. 2 dr peppers. 20 teammates. 25 years old yesterday.

and I’m home.

Got home last night around 7:30pm (got to the airport in Minnesota at 7:30am) and went straight to practice. I was thinking that I might jump in the drills and do some practice but once I got into Austin I was exhausted. My teammates were excited to see me and I was excited to see them. Once I got there they split and I went and hung out with the forwards…good times! We had some new players in the tight five, so it was interesting to watch their faces as we told them to put their head here and their hands there…very funny!

Of course I said hi to the girl first, but then quickly I went to find my pup! He was on his tie-out, like every practice and he was SO excited to see me! His butt was wiggling and his tail was going ninety miles an hour and he couldn’t stand still. I let him off the tie-out for a few minutes and he almost knocked me over he was so excited. This morning waking up to two different kisses was the best thing ever. He hasn’t left my side this morning…god I missed him.

So last night after practice the team went out to Bagpipes to have a few drinks and some good food for my birthday. I had shrimp and chips…let the good food binge continue! We watched some football and decorated some goodie bags for this weekend’s rookie clinic. While there we met the coach of the UT &amp USA Quad Rugby team. He was a bad ass guy and was very nice.

More about the girl…she got me two awesome presents for my birthday! (Turned 25 yesterday…quarter of a century!) She got me a 3D photo book of Hollywood Classic Hotties and a 30 minute massage today!!!

Alrighty, so I don’t have to work until Tuesday so I get to relax this weekend a little bit. We have the rookie clinic on Saturday and then a birthday party on Sunday…so tonight I am getting some GOOD f’in food and relaxing with the House of WAM.

Have a great weekend all!

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From Womeneagles.com:

US Squad Falls to Canada in Second Match of Series

8.30.07 – Blaine, MN - The US Developmental Squad fell to a strong Canada Senior Women’s team, 7-46, in the second match of their series. The two teams met at the National Sports Center fields in Blaine, MN in a newly organized NA2 competition that the US would like to see continue in future years. The US squad also fell to Canada on Tuesday, 5-18. The lone scorer for the US squad on Thursday was Farrah Douglas with a try in the second half and Maura Weikman who converted the try to bring the match to 7-31. Canada brought in reserves in the second half and poured on the offense to bring the final score to 7-46. The match up of a young US squad against a more experienced Canada Senior side was obvious and the US coaching staff hopes to use the experience for future selection venues and matches.

Next up for the Women Eagles is a tour to Europe in December where they will play 2 scheduled matches against England and potentially more teams as the schedule develops.

View a gallery of photos from the match from DropKickPhotos.com.
——————————————I’m sitting in the Denver airport this afternoon dreading blogging about the match yesterday. I really just don’t want to write about it. We trained all week with two a days almost everyday…and the team is going home today with 2 losses.

We trained hard and we played even harder but Canada took it to us. Final score was 7-46, with Farrah scoring the lone try. The game had SO many brilliant moments, but we just couldn’t get it in through the posts or across the line.

Its frustrating because as a player on this developmental team you wanted to show the coaches, your teammates and the US what you could do. But we said it all weekend and I will repeat it here, its the mental toughness at this level that is the most important. Can you keep making tackles, keep rucking that ball and be a good teammate if your team is down 30 points? Can you help pick up your teammates in the try zone and if on the sidelines? The challenges of this weekend have made me such a stronger player and I owe it all to the teammates I met for the first time this weekend and the old friends I played with. I know that we all played our hardest and left it all out on the field, but it wasn’t enough.

Maybe I will have more later…wishing I was home in Austin with my dog and that special someone. )

OH AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!! 25 TODAY…quarter of a century. Scary.

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The day before a game is always tough…especially if you played the day before. The day began at 9am with breakfast and a video session at 10am. Watching yourself on tape is never fun, but we were able to identify problems as a team and now we can work on them. Our defensive work definitely was off as most of the time we were disorganized and not coming up flat. The video made that fact glaringly obvious and we diagrammed and discussed it to death!

Practice that afternoon was at 4pm after a short pool recovery workout at 11am. Practice this afternoon was very focused and intense. The team that played on Monday was intent to get the Wednesday team ready…so everything was snappy and well played. First things was getting everyone on the same page for set pieces. We reviewed scrum calls, lineout positions and lots of defense.

The last piece of the practice was defending and offending the 22meter. So the Mon team would defend as the Wed team tried to score. Each score in the try zone or just beyond the 22 was a point. Both teams were ravenous and were intent on getting each other prepared. The focus and commitment to each part of the short game was immense…we are ready for tomorrow now. After practice we had dinner and then a short jersey ceremony. I posted the roster last night so everyone can see who is playing. I will be wearing #20 again and will be coming in at scrumhalf if needed. The team is extremely focused tonight and we are about to watch 300 as a team. What a pump up movie!!!

GO USA!!

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(UPDATE The ending score was Canada 18 USA 5.)

This morning we woke up around 9am for breakfast (what a glorious sleep it was!!!). The night was punctuated with a massive thunderstorm and lightening storm around 3am. Those of us that were sleeping with the windows open (unheard of in Austin!) were awoken by loud thunder

and plenty of rain.

Since we knew we were playing at 3:30pm and we had already gotten our jerseys, everyone was pretty nervous the whole morning. The starting team and reserves got out and moving around 10:45am, the forwards did some live scrumming while the scrumhalves worked on their passing Meanwhile, the backs did some passing and plenty of counterattacks as we knew that Canada likes to kick.

After that we ate lunch at noon and then had the afternoon off until 2pm. That was the longest two hours of everyone’s lives it seemed. All was quiet until 1:30pm when people were getting so antsy that we were running up and down the halls yelling. We even had a traveling ipod that visited each room to pump us up.

Finally 2pm rolled around and we hit the pitch. We had 30 minutes of individual warmup and then team warmup was at 3pm. Team warmup was pretty intense as Michelle the strength and conditioning coach was in charge. It felt like our fitness was being tested, like we were running the bleep test or proving we had the guts. Very very intense and almost everyone was sweating profusely. Then the reserves jumped on the bags and we did some contact and some defense.

All too soon the game was set to begin. The whistle was blown and we kicked off&hellipand Canada promptly knocked the ball on. We were hoping that this would be how the whole match would go&hellipbut unfortunately it didn’t happen that way. By no means did Canada blow us out of the

water, we kind of blew ourselves out of the water. We didn’t seem to wake up until the 2nd half and by then we were down by 5 or 6 tries. (UPDATE The ending score was 18-5.) I don’t know the ending score but it was definitely 20 something to 5.

All in all we played very well and worked well as a team. We had moments of brilliance, mind-blowing tackles and butter finger balls that were actually caught. We just couldn’t finish when it came down to it&hellipa penalty 10 meters out and we can’t capitalize. I’m not trying to be a downer, but it’s what happened. However the team is very positive tonight and we are excited about getting onto the pitch again on Wednesday. We definitely have a score to settle.

As for me&hellipI got to PLAY! I played for about 10 minutes in the 2nd half and was told after the game that I really made an impact. It is almost a blur now but I kept up, made all my tackles and managed the forwards. So in my book&hellipa success. And the cherry on top? I get to reserve on Wednesday!! Originally I was told that I wouldn’t get any playing time, but I think I have proved myself. I really do belong here.

And I finally did it. I’m an Eagle.

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