September 11th, 2010: The kickoff to the season was a wet and wild one characterized by hard hits, sloppy passes and a fight to the finish. With the rainy conditions it seemed that the game would be a slow, hard-hitting affair. The first half proved to be anything but - the Banshees controlled the ball and used the possession to score first off a 5-meter scrum. Their center knifed through our defense to score center post and inspired MRFC to counter with some offense of its own. The next 15 minutes saw lock Jake Gottfried and prop Cole Coopman capitalize with tries of their own after multiple phases of play. The offensive onslaught continued despite sloppy ball handling (the ball kept bouncing MRFCs way) with winger Jason Talbot utltimately scoring for MRFC's third try of the day. MRFC took a final penalty running, after 3 phases back and forth across the field, winger Josh Kraemer broke the line, was tackled at the 5 meter line with fullback Mike Albert in support to clean up the ball and touch down MRFC's 4th try as time expired. Halftime score 26-7.
The second period started with adjustments from Coach Tom Beckman and an emphasis on countering the sloppiness of the conditions and first half play with more possession and less long passes. MRFC took immediate control winning their own kickoff but while trying to exploit an overload, the Banshee fullback picked off an MRFC pass and took it the distance for the score. A period of back and forth was broken by MRFC winger Josh Kraemer breaking a long run for the 5th team try of the day. This would prove to be the final try for MRFC. A lot of hard hitting took over and MRFC's conditioning waned in the final 20 minutes as they surrendered another 2 tries. The game ended with a lot of defense for MRFC and they escaped with a 31-27 victory.
Recap:
It was great to get the win but we have a lot of work to do. Tackling, committing to the loose pieces, and conditioning were big issues for our squad. It is fortunate that we have so many athletes on the team, otherwise this game might have gone a different direction.
Notables:
Alex McCray was Man of the Match. Put the workload of tackling and rucking on his shoulders and carried the team.
Adam "Kos" Kosidowski made 3 of 5 conversions despite horrible conditions that ultimately proved the winning difference!
