2008 NASC Day 4 – West U23s & Seniors

Alrighty, time for another post! Yea for stale airport air and delayed flights! Seems that most of my teammates have had their flights delayed, moved or outright canceled, what a headache this trip has become!

Back to the blog though, lets blog about Day 4 of my trip at the 2008 NASCs! The morning was early again as we were scheduled to play MARFU team at 10am, so warm ups began around 9am. I woke up that morning anxious and eager as I wanted our team to be successful in our match today. I knew that I was not going to play at all, or maybe just a few minutes, so I wasn’t really worried about my performance. The team seemed to be in good spirits and we were all eager to get to the field and start our pre-match rituals.

The weather was dreary and dark as we approached the fields, and the clouds looked like they would burst at any minute. Sadly the game was pretty dark and dreary for the West senior side as well, MARFU was well conditioned and we simply could not keep up. After the game we learned that MARFU had had 3 matches together as an All-Star team and this was obviously a huge advantage for them. However, since excuses are not what makes a rugby team, we had to face facts that we did not perform as a team. We looked forward to Sunday’s match against the South as a way to show everyone that we are a good team and we can bounce back from a beating.

But guess what? I got to play some rugby!! The coaches gave me ten minutes and it was amazing. At first I was a bit overwhelmed to be out on the pitch again (remember I have only played a few 7s matches since being released) but I quickly fell into the groove and started organizing the defense. I tackled a few times with no hesitation and rucked as well! It was great to be out on the field again in my element, playing scrumhalf…

So that loss was a tough one to take as we have been trapped in the bottom tier for quite some time now and we were hoping this would be the year we would be released. But it was not meant to be, so we have to look forward to our match on Sunday and work hard to beat the South.

Right after our game The Girl and I headed over to the West U23 vs MARFU motley game, we had only missed a few minutes, but the score was already 40-0 or so. But I do have to say that the score did not reflect that game at all, the motley played hard, fast rugby and really gave the West U23s a good match. The final score was quite high, but as a spectator if you didn’t look at the score you would have thought it was 0-0 and the next try would win it all. Great rugby to watch!

Links to Day 1 NASC – West U23s, Day 2 NASC – West U23s, Day 3 NASC – West U23s and Seniors, 2008 NASC Day 4 – West U23s & Seniors, 2008 NASC Day 5 – West U23s & Seniors, 2008 NASC Day 6 – West U23s & Seniors and the 2008 NASC Full Results.