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The morning began with Round-Robin play which would seed the teams in the afternoon double-elimination tournament.

A skills competition was held at lunch with the following results:

50-m Dash:Hoggs

Kick-for-Post: Central

Kick-for-Touch: Hoggs

The afternoon’s double elimination was set-up with (2) Boys brackets and (1) Girls bracket. Losing teams fell back into a 3rd bracket. Check out the local news coverage by WVLT.

Bowl Division: Central and Hoggs met up with undefeated records. Both teams displayed an attacking style all day that continued into this championship match. The Hoggs prevailed by outpacing Central in the end to take the title.

Plate Division: After going 1-1 in morning play, South Doyle went on to defeat Starr’s Mill to win the championship game.

Sword Division: Oakland captured the title after playing (5) games during the day by beating Cherokee. Cherokee scored late in the second half to make the game close, but could not hold Oakland.

Girls Division: After going winless in Round Robin play, Maryville improved to win both playoff games and clinch the girls title match over Karns.

Division I

After sustaining losses in late Round Robin play to Middle TN and Asheville, UT and Knoxville, respectively, fought back into the championship match which witnessed UT’s 50-meter try in the closing seconds to secure the win oner Knoxville. It was another good battle between the intra-city teams.

Division II

SEDOD (Steely Eyed Dealers of Death from Upper East TN) overcame an early loss in Round Robin play to make the finals against a Farragut squad whose only prior loss was the 1st match of the tournament against Knoxville. Johnson City took advantage of some defensive errors to win the match.

On an afternoon of bad weather interspersed with even worse weather, the boys from Knoxville showed their true colors yesterday with a hard fought win over a previously unbeaten Augusta side 17 - 7.

Knoxville opened up the scoring with a penalty kick from Jallo, and followed up later in the half with a nice open field try when Garret J burst through a hole up the middle and found Ingle in support out wide. Adam showed some rugby smarts and managed to get around close to the posts before he dotted it down, and made Jallo’s job easy for the conversion. Unfortunately we put ourselves under pressure soon after the restart with a knock-on while attempting a quick tap from a penalty in our 22 (when will we ever learn??), and Augusta capitalized by muscling over a converted try to bring it back to 10 -7 to end the half.

At halftime we talked about how cold we were and then swam back out onto the field for the even soggier second half. There were handling errors galore on both sides, understandably, but Luke’s boot and the pack helped keep the pressure on Augusta early on. Eventually the pressure told and Shanks bravely intercepted a clearing kick with his noggin and KA was able to dive on it over the line. Another laser-guided kick by Jallo put us ahead 17 -7. From that point on Augusta were pretty much camped out inside our 22, but thanks to some spirited defence we managed to hold on for the win, even after playing the last ten minutes a man down as Reggie cooled his heels in the sin bin.

As coach, I couldn’t be much happier with how you guys played yesterday, in pitiful conditions against a top-notch side. You tackled well, you (mostly) took good options, the pack won five tight heads, our looseys were all over the place, the inside backs made the gain line, the deep 3 had each others backs … it all seemed to click. What made the victory even sweeter was the guys who filled in from the bench where needed and did all that was asked of them and more. Reggie, Garret, Mike F, Heath, Tanner … hats off to you!! Yesterday’s victory was a team effort in every sense of the word, and that’s what I’m most proud of … and you guys should be to. Like I said pre-game; 30 guys at practice allows us to practice effectively and gives us enough depth to field a strong 22 every week. If you’re a regular a-sider and you haven’t stopped to thank any of the guys that wear 16-22 each week … now’s your chance! Without them, that mud in your mouthguard wouldn’t have tasted half as sweet when Dave blew his whistle at fulltime

We’re not done yet boys! One more big game to go, and then we’ll see what happens. Uncle Possum needs YOU at practice, so be there or we’ll send Jallo and his “elbow of fury” to find you! See you Tuesday night.

Yours in soggy socks,

Pete

Crisis at Creel Park

Braving the great blizzard of 2008, the gentlemen of KRFC traveled down to Atlanta this weekend to take on Old White. Away games are always tough but aside from missing Rooster due to a death in the family (condolences to you and Heather, our thoughts were with you my brother), and Hawk due to injury, we traveled as strong as we could have hoped. Selections were tough as always but that is a nice problem to have and I’m constantly thankful for all the new guys who are helping to progressively make us a stronger side.

Due to the cold and the boys being a little reluctant to get changed out in the arctic winds, we got off to a slow start warming up. So to save time, I decided to skip the ball handling/skills part of our warmup … this was to be the first of many unforced errors and not something I ever intend to repeat. By the end of the game tape, I had counted 18 unforced errors .. including bad passes, dropped ball and eight knock-ons (two of which were from quick tap penalty moves dead in front of the posts that could possibly have ….. ah hell, who knows!!!). We had plenty of possession, we won several tight heads, the penalty count was 20 - 9 in favor of us so we can’t blame the ref … so what happened? We literally dropped the ball! Credit to Old White though, their looseys were up fast and hard and their backline defended well. The only weak link we could see was their flyhalf and the inside channel, but when they brought on Malakai (one of their D1 players) at flyhalf that sewed up that hole pretty quick. As much as I wish I could blame him, or the ref, or anybody else for our defeat, it’s impossible to ignore that we beat ourselves as much as we got beat by them.

Final score Old White 12 - KRFC 8 (Adam Ingle try, Tom Jallo penalty)

So where do we go from here? Losing sucks, but at least we can try and learn from it. Come out to practice Tuesday and Thursday and let’s glue the wheels back on this wagon and get rolling again because it ain’t over yet!! We’re still playing for a play-off spot with two tough games to go, and the silver lining out of this whole deal is that now there’s the possibility of a road trip with the boys to either N’awlins or Memphis. No way my wife would let me go to either of those places with a bunch of rugby guys otherwise Giddyup I say!

See you at practice,

Pete

ps. I’d like to take a second to apologize to the guys who traveled and didn’t get any game time at all. Ordinarily I would have made the effort and tried to twist some arms on our A-side and over on OW’s bench to get a B-side game going, but I was so gutted by our loss that I just wanted to gtf out of there (to the pie shop, which was closed as well gd’it). You guys traveled, you have paid your dues (for the most part) … you deserved better! I didn’t even realize what I’d done until I got home and the next day was giving my son a lecture about being a sore loser … and then it hit me that I’d been a sore loser as well My apologies, and I hope to do better for you guys in the future.

pps. Jallo has sold his right forearm and elbow to Satan in return for being a better place kicker … that’s why they keep doing evil things to people on the field. He told me on the ride home. Ask him if you don’t believe me .. but just watch yourself when you do

• Churchill Cup Finals in Chicago on June 21
• Tickets ($40-$50) go on sale February 8 and good for three matches that day

Todd has posted his contact information on the Old Boys section of the message board.  Please respond with your interest.