Charles River Men @ New Haven Old Black
Match Report
September 14, 2013, 1pm
Boulevard Field, New Haven, CT
Rats Match
Match Details: From the start of the 2013 fall season, it seemed that the Charles River Rats were showing signs of improvements as they nearly beat Newport RFC and scored a “try bonus” point in the NERFU standings against Saratoga Springs RFC. All the progress the Rats made under the guidance of Head Coach Paul Clemens diminished against New Haven Old Black RFC, as the Rats were severely beaten in nearly every faucet of the game.
Match Report
September 14, 2013, 1pm
Boulevard Field, New Haven, CT
Match Details: From the start of the 2013 fall season, it seemed that the Charles River Rats were showing signs of improvements as they nearly beat Newport RFC and scored a “try bonus” point in the NERFU standings against Saratoga Springs RFC. All the progress the Rats made under the guidance of Head Coach Paul Clemens diminished against New Haven Old Black RFC, as the Rats were severely beaten in nearly every faucet of the game.
The Rats knew a herculean effort was needed to emerge victorious against the former Division I club. Five minutes into the match, Old Black drew first blood as they overloaded the weak sided and raced up the touchline for a try. Five minutes later, a scary image frightened both teams as a New Haven player suffered a neck injury as he was being tackled. The injury was severe enough to warrant an ambulance; thankfully the player was moving his fingers and toes before he was wheeled off.
During the delay, Coach Clemens was frustrated that his players could not tackle anything on the pitch, allowing New Haven to seize early control of the game. Ironically, the smallest Rat, Wing Pat Cavallario was the only Charles River player who stood up to Old Black and made tough tackles, despite being on the wrong end of multiple 3-on-1 attacks. The few highlights for the Rats during the first half was stealing a scrum and winning the majority of the line-outs.
In open-play, the Rats’ forwards were overwhelmed by their opponents’ fitness and quickness as the Rats’ defense featured too many arm tackles that were broken. When the Rats did have the ball, the forwards did not reach the required landmarks to run their set-play offense, limiting the options provided to Scrum-Half Dana Etherington. Since Old Black was pretty quick in filling their Channel 1 defense, Etherington was forced to feed his passes to a backline that faced blinding pressure as they received the ball.
During halftime, a few Rats were incredibly upset with the match and urged their teammates to play like rugby players. It was noted that Old Black was open to counter-rucking, something the Rats needed to take advantage of. Also, Coach Clemens figured out Old Black’s offensive strategy, which was a forward crash off the scrum-half, another forward crash off the fly-half. The second forward crash allowed Old Black’s fullback and the remaining forwards to insert themselves in the backline, creating a numbers mismatch that the Rats could not stop. The only way the Rats could stop this attack was to make tackles at or behind the gain line, this did not happen in the second half. Some players, like Etherington, Flanker Grant McAuslan and 8-man Karim El-Sayed did play more aggressively, however too many Rats were either too hurt or too tired to stop the Old Black onslaught.
The play of the game for the Rats came with twenty minutes left in the half, where Flanker Mark Cassidy stole a perfectly placed kickoff from Inside Center Corey Lang and proceeded to advance past the 22-meter line, however his steal surprised his teammates, which explained why Cassidy was running without support leading to a devastating turnover.
Coach Clemens told his players that this week will be “gut-check” week during practice. If the Rats hope to salvage their 40th Anniversary season, practice must be a priority this week.
FINAL SCORE: Charles River 0, New Haven 77
Man of the Match: Dana Etherington. The UNH alum was the only Rat to outperform his Old Black counterpart as he dodged plenty of defenders while carrying the ball. Etherington was also the leading tackler for the Rats because, according to Coach Clemens, “…he has rugby fitness. There are only three or four players on this team that is actually rugby fit and he’s one of them.”
Honorable Mention: Pat Cavallario
| Position | Rats Starter (tackles made[1]) | Substitute (tackles made) |
| #1 Prop | Phil Adams (5) | |
| #2 Hooker | Alec “Ox” Tolivaisa (5) | |
| #3 Prop | Chris Gardner (1) | Dave McVey (0) |
| #4 Lock | Andrew “J-Hole” Jackson (1) | |
| #5 Lock | Wes “Mantooth” Page (1) | “Coach” Paul Clemens (3) |
| #6 Flanker | Mark “The Kid” Cassidy (5) | |
| #7 Flanker | Grant “007” McAuslan (7) | |
| #8 8-Man | Karim El-Sayed (6) | |
| #9 Scrum-Half | Dana “D-Train” Etherington (8) | |
| #10 Fly-Half | Ricky Friberg © (6) | Bruce “Frenchie” French[2] (0) |
| #11 Wing | “Wee” Pat Cavallario (6) | |
| #12 Inside Center | Corey “A or B” Lang (4) | |
| #13 Outside Center | “Swiss Army” Jeff Garner (3) | |
| #14 Wing | Charlie Punches (3) | |
| #15 Fullback | “President” Mike Fair (3) |
[1] As counted by Jerry Kenneally
[2] Bruce French entered the game as a wing, while Corey Lang moved to Fly-Half (and assumed Captain duties), Mike Fair moved from fullback to Inside Center and Charlie Punches from wing to fullback.
Orange Whips Match
Match Details[1]: The Whips where helped out by a few defectors from New Haven. For the first half of the game, the Whips were controlling the ball and playing aggressive rugby as they raced to a 10-0 lead. However, as the half winded down the Whips were showing major signs of fatigue. With three minutes left in the half, Old Black scored on the wing, to get on the board, this would be a major theme for the Whips as they could not contain the speedy edge players from Old Black. Throughout the 2nd half, Old Black utilized their speed and fresh legs to run around the Whips’ defense as they scored at will. One amusing part of the game was one of the New Haven defectors “putting the boots” one of his club mates because he was not rolling away from a ruck.
FINAL SCORE: Whips 10, Old Black 38
Man of the Match: Charlie Punches. The Texas Native showed that he has the heart the Rats need for future success. No matter how lopsided the score was, the Texas native was fully hustling and never gave up on the defense. In fact, he did stop two separate breakaways from behind. The Rats are excited that Punches will continue his rugby career with us.
Full-Siders[2]: Phil Adams, Alec Tolivaisa, Andrew Jackson, Mark Cassidy, Grant McAuslan, Corey Lang, Charlie Punches, Mike Fair
Rats Scoring Table
| PLAYER | TRIES | PENTALY KICKS | CONVERSIONS | TOTAL POINTS |
| J. Kenneally |
2 |
1 |
5 |
23 |
| M. Fair |
1 |
0 |
0 |
5 |
| C. Lang |
1 |
0 |
0 |
5 |
| D. Bloom |
1 |
0 |
0 |
5 |
| J. Calixte |
1 |
0 |
0 |
5 |
Season Results
| OPPONENT |
W/L |
RATS SCORE |
OPP SCORE |
RECORD |
| Newport |
L |
8 |
22 |
(0-1) |
| @Saratoga |
L |
35 |
86 |
(0-2) |
| @New Haven |
L |
0 |
77 |
(0-3) |
| @Amoskeag | ||||
| Portland | ||||
| Burlington | ||||
| @Providence | ||||
| North Shore | ||||
| @Worcester | ||||
| Albany |
Next Week
The Rats travel to Manchester, New Hampshire next week where they will face Amoskeag RFC. Amoskeag was one of four teams that were moved down from Division I to Division II; hence the Rats will need to have a good week of practice to gain the victory in the Granite State.