Winless drought continues for the Arizona State University Sun Devils in loss to UCLA

from Arizona State University Women’s Rugby Blog:

The Sun Devils were once again routed by theUCLA Bruins for the second time this season in a 72-0 loss.

That is fourth straight loss for the Sun Devils this season, who are now 0-4 overall and at the bottom of the conference standings, while UCLA at 5-0 is leading the way. The 72-0 margin of defeat is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, in the history of ASU Women’s Rugby, according to head coach Barry Carter.  For the season, an embarrassing 219 points have been scored against ASU.

Before the match assistant coach Simon Dunlop told the team the three keys to the game were “intensity, trust and belief.”

“You have to believe you can score and you have to believe you can win,” Dunlop said.

Early on it looked as though the Sun Devils believed they could win and came out blazing in the first 10 minutes.  The Sun Devils were on the offensive and hitting the Bruins hard. However, ASU was unable to sustain the intensity, and by the end of the first half it was 20-0.

At the end of first half and throughout the second, the Devils watched the action and walked way too much. This lead to very poor support for the ball carrier when the Devils were on offense, which then lead to quite a few turnovers.

ASU has shown improvement and flashes of great rugby throughout the season, but has been unable to piece together 80 minutes of consistent tackling, aggressiveness, intensity and offensive efficiency.

The frustration is definitely mounting for the Sun Devils, who will look for their first win of the season when they travel to UCSB to play the Gauchos this Saturday. Overall, the general feeling of discontent was summarized by fly-half Theresa Gillmore.

“I’m just so tired of losing,” Gillmore said after the match.

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