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Harrisburg Write Up:
On Saturday October 13th, the North Penn Men’s
Rugby Football Club hosted the Harrisburg Men’s Rugby Football Club at the field
behind the Hatfield American Legion. Besides this being the fall opener for the
Men’s team, it also was the first game on their path to making the playoffs. A
path North Penn hasn’t been able to complete in past years but know has been an
individual goal of most club members.
With Harrisburg being the opening game, the men knew
they were in for a tough battle, and a tough battle they got.
Harrisburg got on the board first with a lucky
score. Being on the trie line and having no success of forcing the ball over,
they passed it out to their wings that attacked left. In an attempt to make a
pass, a Harrisburg player got lit up in a tackle,
coughed the ball up but somehow landed perfectly into the open arms of a
teammate who fell forward and made the score. With a failed conversion,
Harrisburg leads
5-0.
North Penn would answer right back with speedster Larry Sbei
taking one in on the right post, alluding tacklers left and right. This was
North Penn’s first trie and successful conversion of the season which was made
by Jared Every; they lead 7-5. North Penn would then move the ball down field
through open holes in the Harrisburg defense and
also thanks to a huge stiff-arm to the neck of a Harrisburg player from Mario Ventresca which
was heard on the sideline and on game tape. Mario’s run gained about 20 meters
for the team. North Penn was starting to set a tempo. Kevin Bucher scooped up a
ball off of a ruck on the trie-line shortly after and dove forward to put North
Penn further atop 12-5. Randy Barndt then missed a normally easy
conversion which would have giving us a 9 point lead but instead the score
remained the same at 12-5.
Right before the conclusion of the half, Harrisburg got on the
board again and with a successful conversion pulling to even at 12-12. This was
a huge let down for the men’s team and fueled the half-time pep talk. North Penn
wanted to come out of the half fired up and they did! Right off of the opening
kickoff and one series of play, Larry Sbei took the ball in from about 40 meters
out for his second try of the day. For the second year in a row, Larry leaped
over a Harrisburg player at the trie-line to punch the
ball in. Jared Every would also connect on this conversion taking
the kicking responsibilities over for the rest of the day. North Penn leads
19-12.
Harrisburg then began to chew up the clock
bringing the ball all the way down and getting a penalty 5 meters out of the
trie-line but elected to kick for points instead of trying to push one over. The
kick was good bringing Harrisburg within 4 at 19-15. This was
obviously their game plan going into the second half. They knew their wings were
no match against ours so they were going to eat up clock, hold onto the ball and
force us to tackle. North Penn did tackle but Harrisburg still found a way to break the
trie-line going up 22-19 with another successful conversion. They weren’t done
yet. After a turnover from a bad line out throw, Harrisburg stuck to their plans and chewed
clock but still managed to punch another trie over. With a failed conversion,
Harrisburg went
up 27-19. North Penn then hustled down the field with some great play out of the
backs and with about 3 minutes to go in the game Matthew Diaz took one in
pulling North Penn to 27-24. Jared Every missed the conversion kick and the
score remained the same 27-24.
North Penn then got the ball back and tried to jam it down
the Harrisburg defense but an overplayed ruck
just passed the 50 created a turn over and Harrisburg went back to their plans of eating
up clock.
Harrisburg would go onto win the game 27-24 but
it should have gone the other way. There were many problems which Coach Stuart
Marjoram was visibly upset about post game. “We knew there game plan, we knew
their number eight was going to pick and go off of the scrum and all we had to
do was tackle, but we couldn’t” said Coach Stu.
Coach Stu said the tackling of the team had drastically
improved over last week but our line outs and backs play hurt us. “We've got to
get a straight ball in to win the line out and our backs have to start running
from depth.” Coach Stu added. These would be some things we would work on in
next weeks practice as we prepare for the Philadelphia Gryphon’s. Larry Sbei one
the Man-Of-The-Match award for the A-side.
North Penn’s Killer Bee’s had better success winning 21-5
with two tries by John Allen and one from Jamaican Mike. Mike Besio went 3 for 3
kicking and the new players looked really good with their ball control and
tackling. Bring on the Gryphon’s!
Second City Write Up:
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On Saturday September 6th the North Penn Men's Rugby Club hosted
Second City Troop Rugby Club for a preseason scrimmage at the pitch behind the
Hatfield American Legion. Also joining the game would be Hurricane Hanna with a
constant heavy rain from kickoff to final whistle. This did not damper the
spirits of the mens team or effect the turnout with North Penn having enough
members to field a starting A and B side if needed with many notable starters
injured or missing in action. We even had about 10 supporters who braved the
rain and stood umbrella in hands for the entire match.
The teams would play
three 20 minute periods with North Penn winning 28-24. Second City got on the
board early scoring the first three trys of the game leading 19-0 going into the
second period. This has been very typical of North Penn's play recently. They
need the other team to score first before they get their engines going. In the
second period North Penn got on the board with Nick "Curly" Donis making a
brilliant tackle in the try zone causing the Second City player to cough up the
ball. Curly dove on the ball and got North Penn into the game 19-7 with a
successful conversion from Randy Barndt. Shortly after that, North Penn had an
overload on the left and Jason Delp and Mike "Navajo" Meisner played a little
give and go with Navajo running the try in from 50 meters out, touching it down
dead center and pulling to 19-14 with another successful conversion kick from
Randy Barndt. This would be the final try of the second period.
In the third
period of play North Penn won a put in on their own scrum and got the ball out
to their attacking backs. The backs drove the ball within 5 meters of the goal
line where the forwards set up stacked right in typical back formation. The ball
was then passed out to Kevin Bucher who passed it down the line to Mike Besio
who took it in for his first try and with another successful kick from Randy
Barndt gave North Penn the lead 21-19. The lead was short lived though with
Second City taking the ball off a turnover and going in for a 24-21 lead. North
Penn would answer right back with Larry Sbei taking the ball down the field
eluding defenders and passing off to Sean "Turtle" Covelens who took it in for
the try and putting North Penn ahead for good 28-24 with another Randy Bardnt
conversion. The game would end then after.
North Penn takes on Harrisburg this
weekend at the field behind the Hatfield American Legion at 1:00 pm. This will
be the home opener for the Fall 2008 season, please invite anyone and everyone
to come out to support the boys!
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