The UF ‘B’ Team competed in the Florida State Championships hosted by the USF Bulls in Tampa over the past weekend. The Gators tasted victory in a hard fought encounter against FSU, but came out victors, eventually winning 12-3.
It’s been a season where patience has had to be shown with a team still in it’s earlier state of development. But the presence of some of the more experienced players throughout the team has meant that the team has played some very good rugby through the course of the season. Many of the combination’s took some time to gel, but when they did it yielded great rewards. I just want to congratulate the Killer B’s on their unbeaten season (in terms of its collegiate schedule) which culminated in the 12-3 victory over FSU to take the State Championship for the ‘B’ Division in Tampa on Sunday 7 March 2010. We deserved the win, and this team has now set the benchmark for the following years to follow. The aim must be to use this title as the foundation to a winning culture that becomes part of the traditions of the UF Rugby Club.
The game itself was very scrappy at times. Due to a few injuries in key positions in both the A and B teams, the Killer B’s fielded one of our flank forwards in the backline, deploying him at inside centre to provide some experience and solidity in the midfield, to counter FSU’s outside backs’ tendency to cut back inside and not look for the offload. But the new 10-12 combination meant that the Gators had to keep things simple in terms of set phase play, and we went out there intending to deploy a very simple, yet effective, game plan.
However, the Gators only did well to frustrate themselves in the first half, with an uncharacteristically disjointed first 40 from the pack. It seems as if some of the hype surrounding the occasion made some of the players a bit nervy. Our bread and butter this season has been our ability to retain the ball through the phases with the forwards, sucking in the defense to create space for our outside backs. However, our half-backs had to absorb more pressure than usual as the ball from the rucks was very untidy. And on top of that, our players were constantly pinged for infringements around the ruck area, which would usually kill any momentum we had been building up until that point.
Our line-outs were also affected due to the reshuffle in the team, and as a result we struggled to secure our ball due to us missing our usual jumpers. And despite giving away a few penalties in the process, our scrum proved to be very dominant, evidenced by our ability to walk FSU straight off the ball at times. So although both teams were awarded their fair share of penalties neither team had managed to trouble the score keepers, with the scoring remaining low throughout the match. From the Gators point of view, this was because we struggled to implement our game plan, and take control of the match. But FSU proved yet again to lack any real threat to our defense, so we were never in any fear of losing the game. Yes we ‘only’ won by 8 points, but FSU never really looked like they knew what to do with the ball when they had it. The enjoyed one linebreak of note throughout the game, near our goal line, when their winger inserted between our flyhalf and centre (FSU unknowingly exploiting our new combo), but our cover defense was up to the challenge, and we snuffed out the goal line threat, eventually clearing the ball a few phases later. And in hindsight that phase of play was the turning point in the game, as FSU seemingly lost confidence in their attacking ability, evidenced by their decision to take the 3 points when they had us camped on our tryline. The most ironic thing about the decision was the fact that their kicker proceeded to miss a pretty easy kick, meaning the teams went in to the break still deadlocked at 0-0.
The team regrouped at half time, with some of the senior guys speaking up and calming everything down. We had played poorly yet we were slowly taking control of the game. The message was that it was now time to go out there, implement our game plan, and get on with winning this game. And that’s what we proceeded to do.
A couple of changes were also made at the half, with one of our flanks moving to scrum half, and a lock coming on to cover our number 5 shifting to the side of the scrum. The Gators started the half well, with our forwards asserting themselves more with the pick and drive. We were able to break the line with our 8 man picks off the base of the scrum as well, but the most important thing was the massive improvement in ball retention. Some slick interplay between the forwards eventually saw the Killer B’s cross the whitewash in the left corner. Our prop slotted the tricky conversion from the side line with a brilliant drop kick. Unfortunately he then proceeded to miss a relatively standard attempt at goal from pretty much straight out, which drew a couple of comments after the game.
There were a couple of talking points in the second forty. The Gators saw their inside centre up-ended in a blatant spear tackle by one of the FSU players. It was clearly intentional, and should have resulted in a yellow card (the assistant referee running touch even said so much) but FSU escaped, with the referee ignoring the rules regarding the incident. And then there was the dubious calling back of a clearly scored try by UF, only for the referee to award us a penalty. Bizarre to say the least. Despite a few issues with the referees interpretation of the laws, the Killer B’s came out victors, scoring a late try to take the game away form FSU. The Noles again failed to cross our tryline, with them only managing to kick a 3 pointer in the second 40 to end the scoring at 12-3. That’s now 3 times we have played them this season, and they have managed to only score 8 points against us. That result clearly shows who the better team in this state is.
I just want to give a final word of congratulations to this year’s Florida State B Champions, the Killer B’s. Well done boys, you’ve made a lot of people proud to be a Gator. Enjoy the success, but keep in mind that you are now champions. You have a responsibility to maintain a high standard in everything you do for the team. The challenge now is to create a winning culture, but I have no doubt of the clubs ability to do that. And to the ‘A’ team, well done on your victory too, and good luck for the game against Tennessee later in the month!
Filed under: Match Reports
