Santa Monica Rugby Club

Arroyo Grande, CA - After traveling up to face the women of San Luis Obispo, the Santa Monica Women’s team got another win under their belt Saturday morning. In the pouring rain, the ladies came away with a convincing victory, running in an impressive 11 tries (12 by our count) to take the W, 69-0.

With the picturesque rolling hills of Arroyo Grande, CA in the background, the Lady Phins put on a running show in open field and played rugby like it’s supposed to be played: In rain or shine. Even in the drab conditions, the backs had a field day in the open field, scoring eight of the eleven tries, as San Luis Obispo was unable to field 15 players. With SLO playing with two players down, Santa Monica made sure to capitalize on the overlap. The ladies were quick to go for the jugular, scoring in the first 4 minutes of play. The quick score set the bar for the intensity they wanted to establish for the game. Impressively, the team was able to sustain that intensity even when the cold, wet conditions affected ball-handling. Needless to say the forwards from both teams had a lot of scrum practice during the game. Ramine “The Afterburner” Cromartie (a new-comer to the team) had an excellent game, calling switches and demonstrating some serious speed and skills out on the Wing. For her efforts, she got a couple of trips over the try-line, scoring a pair of tries in her first game with Santa Monica. Another stand-out performance in the back-line came from Carmen Requena at Scrum-Half. By directing traffic behind the ruck, shooting the gap for her own 50-yard-dash to score and even having a go at a box kick from behind the scrum, Requena showed she has what it takes to step into that position after the back-line shuffled a little and last season’s starting scrum-half, Emily Birdwhistell moved to Fly-Half. Requena’s efforts also garnered her Back of the Match honors.

It just keeps on coming! Whitney Vance picked up where she left off from the Tuscon match last Saturday and showed the outstanding leadership and prowess on the field the team has come to expect whenever she takes the pitch. Vance motored through, around and past the SLO defense to lead all try-scorers with four (they only counted three) trips over the try-line. Vance had fun with the boot too, as she went 7 out of 11 with her conversions. Last but not least for the backs, it was business as usual for the Burner (Andrea Staid for the uninformed). The speed demon got her share of points for Santa Monica as well with her own duo of tries.

Moving on to the more important players on the team, the story of the match is in the forwards. After a complete position change, only two trainings and a five minute binding/scrumming session at the end of practice Thursday, the Santa Monica Women’s Rugby team has a new Hooker and she is a force to be reckoned with. Her name is Carol Fabrizio. C-Fab was a monster in the scrum. The statistics are not official but with C-Fab’s deadly hook, the Santa Monica scrum dominated the bigger SLO pack and won close to every ball. Fabrizio fought hard for every single ball put-in and showed great trust in her props, holding on tight and at times using both feet to go for the ball. She ran hard, hit hard and displayed a natural inclination to running in the forward pack. One cannot communicate how great of a job she did with such little time and opportunity to prepare and learn such a specialized position. For her outstanding performance she was rightfully honored with Forward of the Match. As for the rest of the pack, flashes of unity and brilliance were all over the place. With Fabrizio and some minor adjustments, there was a marked improvement in their scrumming (the Phins at times coming away with a steal by simply pushing the SLO scrum off the ball). Support play has improved and there was a better showing of forwards to make it to the breakdowns to get clean ball to the backs. The try-scorers for the forwards were Nicole “Q” Garcea and Te Awhina Ho Chee. Q’s try was great: Reading the defense and going blind-side off a Santa Monica scrum with an Eight-Man pick. Shrugging off three defenders, she slid into the try-zone to score. Te scored a try in each half. Stretching out to score both times, each try came after a quick tap as she was able capitalize off of SLO’s sluggish defense.

IRB 7’s interrupts division play for the Women’s side this weekend; however, training will go on as scheduled to prepare to run it back against SLO for a home game at Daniel Webster Middle School on February 20th.

Get your rugby fix this Sunday in what experts are calling “The Game before the Game.”

What: SaMo Dolphins vs. Old Puget Sound Beach

When: Sunday, Feb. 7, 1:30 p.m.

Where: Mark Twain Elementary
2224 Walgrove Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90066-3502

Gents,

Here are the fixtures that we have so far:

2/27 Home vs LA Rugby and others

3/13 Home vs Santa Barbara Fossils (Over 40s)–CLUB DAY!

3/27 @ Huntington Beach - TBC

4/10 or 4/24 Home vs ??? - TBC

5/1-5/2 Catalina Rugby Festival

5/15-5/16 Golden Gate Tournament

We are currently working on the “TBC” dates and will notify you guys of what they are going to be when we have something concrete.

There are those two tournaments in the spring. Let us figure out availability and which one we are going to win!!!! Let me know.

By the way, it is worth pointing out that we have not lost a game since 2008! Let’s keeping it going!

Thanks

Adam