Thursday, November 05, 2009

GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS

HAIL, PELICUS!

NEWEST C3

Mark Godfrey has been promoted to C3 on the basis of his refereeing at the Stanford Tens last weekend. Congratulations!


REFS NEEDED

Once again, the weekend looms and we are undermanned.

Friday:
Night game: Cal Maritime hosting UC Davis, seconds, following the 7 PM first-side match. Needs a ref.
There’s also another Friday night game in the Bay Area. Let us know.

Saturday:
Saturday tournament: Andrew Mittry Memorial in Redding. We’ve got three refs and hotel rooms are being provided. Could use one or two more.
Saturday game: Humboldt State hosting SF State. Needs a ref.

Sunday:
Sunday there are three Bay Area games that need refs. Let us know if you’d like to ref or AR.

Friday and Sunday:
ARs needed for the women’s national championships.
Friday there will be two games each at 9, 11 and 1. We’ve got five ARs and could use one more.
Sunday there are six games, also overlapping, and we only have four ARs. Could use at least two more.

LAST WEEKEND

UC Davis B 0 – Sierra College 29 Referee: Phil Akroyd
Sierra College seemed to be up for this more than Davis. UCD didn’t help their own cause as they missed many tackles and lost a lot of lineout ball. Sierra had a grizzly looking set of second rowers who had an amazingly high level of energy and fantastic work rate.

UC Davis B/C 27 – Sierra College B 46 Ref: Akroyd
The second match involved a lot of subs, due to the preseason nature of the game. It was more open and provided many more tries, and UCD got on the scoreboard.

STANFORD TENS

This year’s edition began at the civilized hour of 8:35 AM and all three pitches began right on time. Full marks to Chris Labozzetta, Roberto Santiago and Eric Rauscher for mobilizing the teams and playing ball!

Ten referees did from four to six games each. New Guy Prys Hughes did some AR work, as well as young Ben Bravo completing three weekends on the line on the trot.

The women’s bracket was won handily by a mostly-alumnae Stanford team called Sequoias. They pretty much had their way with all comers, winning one 24-minute match 59-0. John Pohlman refereed their championship match against the Fog, faces decorated as skulls on the day.

The men’s bracket, with seven teams playing a quasi-round robin followed by a final, featured something of an upset.

Pete Smith refereed the Stanford Red team against the Stanford Graduate School of Business side. The undergrads took a two-try lead and looked set to coast, but the coasters must have been reversible as the future venture-capital friendly X scored the next three tries to seal the deal.

BARACUS TENS: McGEORGE BACK FROM THE DEAD ON HALLOWEEN

Report by Bjorn Stumer:
Beautiful day of Rugby in San Francisco for the Baracus 10's tournament. The morning fog soon gave way to glorious sunshine and a full schedule of matches was on its way with three Pelicans in attendance.

USF B-Side 0 – McGEORGE 22 Referee:
McGeorge proved to be the surprise team at this tournament. They arrived with good numbers and are obviously well drilled. On the day they were far too strong for a scrappy USF B side.

McGEORGE 24 – Vallejo 0
Another uneven match which McGeorge easily walked away with. Vallejo fielded a fit and capable side, and I am not quite sure why they were not able to score at all.

McGEORGE 19 – USF A-Side 0
This surely must be a first: I refereed the same side three times (McGeorge), and they won all of these matches and were unscored against. A good day for them, for me, and for all involved.

Report by Mike King:
BARACUS 40 – U. of San Francisco A 0
VALLEJO 24 – USF B 14 round robin

MARIN 19 – Vallejo 0 playoff round
MARIN 21 – McGeorge 14 final round
BARACUS 28 – McGeorge 12 final round
Round robin for first 6 matches. Then a playoff round after which Vallejo and both USF teams needed to leave.

Last 3 teams played round robin, so however won between Marin and BA won tourny (Rich did last game- I had to leave)

Report by Rich Boyer:
A cool morning turned into a very pleasant day. Only one pitch was available for seven teams, so there was no downtime between games. McGeorge ended pool play ranked #1 but ran out of gas against motivated Marin and Baracus teams in the knockout round. Baracus ended up winning the tournament. Baracus focused on good back play with good running bursts. Scrumhalf had some nice boxkicks as well.

Seeing ageless Mike Comstock at prop brought back memories.

FOG FEST UNDER CLEAR SKIES?

Report by John Coppinger:
The combination of the Bay Bridge closure and the busy life (soccer and trick or treating) of Ms. Paige Anderson (age 6) prevented Rich Anderson from refereeing the mini-rugbyfest hosted by SF Fog on the Jobs Corps field on Halloween. This left me and new pelican (but long-time NCRFU stalwart) Dave Ellis to handle 6 40-minute matches played among Fog A and B, Berkeley A and B, San Francisco State Gators, and NCRFU debutante San Bruno Saints. (Since Dave drove down from Redding, I was too embarrassed to complain about an hour and twenty minute drive through Marin to reach TI, a destination I can usually reach in 12 minutes or so from my Oakland home.)

Rich missed a beautiful day on the bay that was perfect for rugby, cool (but not cold) and no wind. Hundreds of pelican were hunting along the western shore of the island as I arrived and I took this as a good omen.

Dave handled matches 1, 3 and 5, while I did matches 2, 4 and 6. Unfortunately, Dave left just before the sixth match on his long journey home before I remembered to collect his scores.

In game 2, Berkeley A beat Fog A 17-7 in an entertaining game. Game 4 featured Berkeley B falling to a smaller and much younger and improved SFSU side, 19-14. In the final match, and a good match it was, San Bruno faced host Fog A. San Bruno looked the better side early and just missed scoring a number of times, but Fog held on to ultimately keep San Bruno scoreless and prevail 7-0. San Bruno was hampered by having three players receive yellow cards, one for a shoulder charge and 2 for failing to retreat 10 meters on penalties, and did struggle with the directives against bridging in rucks and the need to bind when rucking; nonetheless, San Bruno's discipline and sportsmanship on the day are to be noted.

My thanks to the unknown Berkeley supporter who ran touch for six matches.

SUNDAY

Maritime Academy Scrimmage Referee: Joe Androvich
Assistant Referee: Shamoun Aszed
My games were more like a mix-match scrimmage, ask the ref what that means type of deal. It was a good learning tool for the players, but I have no score to report.

SAY A PRAYER

John Chapman of Seaside, Oregon, has refereed several times here in Pelicanland and his voice will be known to many as the stadium announcer from national championships at Stanford to the IRB Sevens when it was played in Los Angeles.

John has been dwelling in the valley of the shadow of death the past week and more, having contracted H1N1 influenza and then sustained any number of complications.

His co-workers have established a blog to provide information about his condition and his family: http://www.johnchapmanseaside.blogspot.com/

THIS WEEK’S PHOTO
Tens Crew
Trying to get all of the referees together for a photograph at a tournament is just about impossible.

Here’s a small sampling of those at Stanford for the Tens tournament last Saturday:

Referees: John Pohlman, Bruce Carter, and Bruce Bernstein
Referee Coach: David Williamson
Assistant Referees: Ben Bravo, Prys Hughes

HAIL, PELICUS!

For the Senate
Pelicus Scriptoris