Thursday, November 03, 2011

SATURDAY ON TREASURE ISLAND

HAIL, PELICUS!

CAN YOU REF THIS SUNDAY?

Teams have been kind enough to play on Sunday this weekend to accommodate our NCRRS Annual General Meeting. We might have a game that doesn’t have a ref yet. Let us know.

BIG DAY SATURDAY

The day at the SF/Golden Gate clubhouse begins with the beep test at 9 AM, for those who would like to benchmark their performances and know where they stand with respect to national and professional referees. It involves running back and forth on the netball court, so dress accordingly if you’d like to challenge yourself.

Our annual pre-season training meeting, which will focus on the tackle, begins at 10 AM.

An AGM is required by our by-laws and will take place from noon until one, which lunch being served just before. This being an odd-numbered year, we will have an election to select our Board of Directors for the next two years.

The current board is: Bruce Carter, Preston Gordon, Pete Smith, Scott Wood and Tom Zanarini.

Be thinking whether you’d like to run, or to nominate someone.

There will be lots of fun stuff going on: Distribution of new society kit, with sales of additional kit items, track suits and custom-made flipping coins. There’s an ATM in the building if you forget your cash or check book.

ETERNAL NEED FOR REFS

Not so bad this weekend – we just need one more for Sunday.

We’ve made it through a couple of busy weekends with some old guys running too much. Help us out:

November 12: Mittry Memorial Tournament in Redding
November 19: Chico Holiday Classic

There are of course other games, but we need several folks to volunteer for each of these events.

GAMES LAST WEEKEND

BERKELEY ALL-BLUES 32 - DC Furies 14 Referee: Aruna Ranaweera
Assistant Referees: Lois Bukowski, Kerry Kubo
Performance Reviewing Committee: Preston Gordon, Mike King, Peter Buckley (PNW), Mike Malone, Dixon Smith.

On a beautiful sunny afternoon at Morton Field in Vallejo, unbeaten Berkeley hosted win-less DC on the last weekend of the WPL regular season. Set-pieces were well-matched and open play was exciting but rather sloppy. DC executed a structured, physical game-plan and frequently found gaps in the Berkeley defense. At the breakdown, Berkeley contested fiercely and often poached ball which resulted in several long line-breaks through mid-field. Berkeley won comfortably in the end, 5 tries to 2. Much thanks to Lois and Kerry for their assistance and thanks to the multiple PR's (in-training) for their constructive feedback. Also thanks to Berkeley for hosting a nice post-match picnic/barbeque, which was well-attended by players and alumni.

Seconds: ALL BLUE 39 - DC Furies 0 Referee: Lois Bukowski
Several bruising runs and 2 tries from 1st side game AR Kerri Kubo!

SFGG 24 - Petersham 14 Referee: Rich Boyer
The touring Aussies from Petersham, an inner suburb of Brisbane, began arriving half an hour prior to game time. They had flown in the day before and celebrated their arrival that night until the wee hours of the morning. One player was dressed like one of the Blue Man Group, head to toe in a blue stretch suit bearing the Aussie flag. After some pre game warm ups he decided it was too hot and he shed his garb for the more traditional rugby attire.

Their flanker approached me to inquire if he could play the game with a movie camera strapped to his forehead….Needless to say that did not work out.

The game was played in four 15 minute periods. The Petersham lads took the first period to shake off the cobwebs and were on the back foot the entire period. SFGG were strong, but could not finish off plays with knock-ons and forward passes underscoring the fact they have only been practicing for two weeks to date.

The game was played in good spirits and the Aussies soon put together some good passages of play. The SFGG pack were stronger so the Aussies adapted a la the Irish in the World Cup and held up the ball carrier and ensuing mauls.

The remaining three periods were played at pace with limited line outs.

SFGG won 24-14.

CALIFORNIA 7s
Report by Scott Wood:

Saturday Referees: Paul Bretz, Tim Day, Pete Smith, Scott Wood
Saturday ARs: Eric Rauscher, Ron DeCausemaker, Trey Boone (SMC), Sione Finau (SMC), Jim Crenshaw

Sunday Referees: Jim Crenshaw, Tim Day, Chris Draper, Scott Wood
Sunday ARs: Eugene Baker, John Pohlman, Eric Rauscher, Brad Richey

The California 7s was hosted by St. Mary's College. A great venue with blue skies overhead and green grass underfoot. Two pools of four played three rounds on Saturday to determine seeding for Sunday's quarterfinals. UC Davis and Cal Poly dominated their respective pools each going undefeated. St. Mary's and San Diego state were 2-0 on the day. University of San Diego and Cal went 1-2 while Santa Clara and Loyola were winless.

Sunday had a shift change as Bretz, Smith, and DeCausemaker were not available. Jim Crenshaw graciously stepped to plate and Chris Draper, in town for work, was cajoled to fill in for a couple matches.

A fine set of matches to start the day. St. Mary's defeated Cal 26-17 in an exciting display of rugby. SDSU beat cross-town rivals USD 12-5. Cal Poly blew past Santa Clara 26-0 while UC Davis played around with Loyola before besting them 19-7.

The tournament format set up for Challenger and Championship brackets. Cal and U San Diego won their challenger semi-final matches while St. Mary's and San Diego State would face each other in the championship final match.

Challenger Final
CALIFORNIA 42 – U San Diego 7 Referee: Scott Wood
ARs: Tim Day, John Pohlman, Eric Rauscher, Brad Richey
Cal was very methodical in its attack but USD maintained a strong defense forcing Cal to use its speed on the outside. USD scored a try late in the second half off some superb use of speed and passing.

Third Place Match
Cal Poly 19 – UC DAVIS 24 Referee: Jim Crenshaw

Championship Final
ST. MARY'S COLLEGE 38 – San Diego State 19 Referee: Tim Day

Many thanks to Kat Todd-Schwartz for taking the time to oil up the butcher block and join us on Saturday. Her advice, insight, and wit were very helpful.

BEN QUAYE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT
Report by Bruce Carter:

The UC Santa Cruz Slugs hosted the second memorial tournament for their teammate who died almost two years ago.

It was another gorgeous morning on the pitch from heaven as nine or ten teams prepared for some pre-season rugger.

One surprise was a new team, Cal State – Monterey Bay, who won their first two games. (I don’t know what happened with their third – for the first time in my entire career I left before every game was finished.

(I don’t know what came over me. Perhaps it was the presence of a visiting friend, an old roommate and teammate from medical school in Georgia in the ‘70s, who doesn’t have the jones anymore; perhaps it was that our wives were back home working their magic in the kitchen. But I left while one game was in progress and another was yet to be played.)

Got four good runs in:
CAL POLY 22 – Santa Rosa JC 10
On field two the half-way line was where the north 10-meter line should have been. Everything was otherwise marked nicely and clearly visible, so we used the lines. Which meant one ‘half’ of the field was 50% longer than the other.

All of the points in this game were scored at the shorter, north end. Santa Rosa had a ten-point halftime lead, giving the lie to the pre-game handicapping that I had given my visiting friend.

UCSC 12 – Cal Poly 7
Cal Poly sat some players, perhaps looking forward to playing Sierra College.

Bad move. The Slugs played good defense, while solid work by their #7 and #8 kept the offense moving.

UC Santa Cruz II 0 – FRESNO STATE 24
The Bulldogs are learning the game, another team of recent vintage.

Nice to see new teams step into success.

UCSC 17 – Santa Rosa JC 5
Four games and I only got four different teams to ref. Fire the assignments officer!

Other refs on hand were James Hinkin and Stephen Moore, who had to leave even earlier than me, Sam Davis who was the iron man, and Bruce Bernstein who broke from a legal conference in Monterey to help out for the afternoon.

BARACUS HALLOWEEN TENS
Report by Hubie Wang:

There were four teams at the tournament Baracus, Aptos, McGeorge, and Marin. Baracus the host of the tournament played a bit shaky in their opening game due to the lack of players but beat Aptos 22-7. They then beat McGeorge in their second game. The game between Baracus and Marin turns to be the combination for the final. Both team played hard and good rugby, Baracus who was trailing the whole game came back to win it 17-12 with a last minute try. After the Lunch break the playoff started with Baracus and Marin beating Aptos and McGeorge to get into the final. The consolation game between Aptos and McGeorge was well played by both side. Final score 26-24 Aptos beating McGeorge by two points. While I am wrapping up the consolation game Jim blows his whistle from the other pitch just to end the final with a "tie". Baracus clutched the title with the perfect record coming into the playoff round.

We saw a lot of new faces on the pitch which is great. Good rugby was played and overall a great turn out for everybody.

I did not keep records of all the scores.
Note: Anthony who just started reffing in May did not ref a game due to the intensity of the games and lack of experience, however he did a great job ARing for all of us.

Refs:
Jordan Bruno
Jim Crenshaw
Chris Labozzetta
Hubert (Hubie) Wang
Mark Godfrey
Rod Chance
Anthony Nguyen

STANFORD TENS

We scheduled seven referees for this long-time stalwart fixture of the NCRFU autumn calendar – and not one of them sent in a report.

THIS WEEK’S PHOTO

John Coppinger attended the rugby at the Pan Am games in Guadalajara this past weekend, where the USA Eagles won bronze medals.

His camera caught two enthusiastic fans of coach Al Caravelli’s boys.

Hooray for the Red, White and Blue

HAIL, PELICUS!

For the Senate
Pelicus Scriptoris