Knoxville Rugby Football Club

Knoxville 8 - Old White 12

March 9, 2008

The Possums left Atlanta empty handed after a hard fought and heart breaker of a defeat by Old White.

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