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Jersey Cup Winners 2002
Morris Rugby Old Boys Spring 2003 Schedule
Previous Seasons:
Fall
2002
Spring 2002
Sat 5/31/03 - Morris @ Jersey Cup
Runners-Up
The season started for a lot of us
coming off the pitch soaked and unrecognizable from mud.....so I guess in this
worst of springs as far as rain is concerned it was fitting we came off the
pitch in our last game that way too!
Morris lost the OB's "final" to OMEX 12-10 in a 2:00PM match after a
four hour layoff and three hours of rain! OMEX had all of their A game
guys out there and except for that try in the second half down the sidelines
Morris controlled most of the match. If memory serves,(and I'm sure I'll be
corrected), our try was scored by Mitch and converted by Tony Jones and Tony
also struck a penalty......Good to have you in there at fullback you are a rock
when it comes to redirecting the ball after a kick! Thanks to 22 players
who got into that match....it's always tough to be playing in a close match and
then come off.
The morning match was quite a different story as we faced off against an
"almost" complete Old Boys side of combined Monmouth and Montclair
guys. The sun was shining the pitch was in great shape and as we discussed
in the pregame shoulder to shoulder we played 22 minute halves of "full on
rugby." The game was a blast to play in with all the open field rugby
we played.....forwards got plenty of touches.....line outs were clean.
Tries were had by Gamer, Alex, OOP and Neil Davies......three were converted so
final score was 26-7. The reason I say the curse continues is that the far
try zone on field three gave us Andy Steinbergs famous "run through the
back non try," last year. This year Neil had a tough time judging the
in goal area which led to Mo/Mo's only try. This writer thinks the future
Old Boys games should only be played in one direction on that pitch!
THANKS TO STEVE BREWER FOR COMING UP.....DON'T BE A STRANGER.
OK.....before I go any further in my haste to get away on Saturday and given the
fact that about 10 people used my truck as a locker room I forgot a few things.
1) an orange Montville Youth Rugby medical kit. 2) The Old Boys game ball was
being used in the mens final. 3) a blue and white golf umbrella. If I
could get back at least the med kit I'd be happy.
Finally thanks to all the players who made family, work or physical sacrifices
so we could play lots of rugby matches this spring. As stated before we
will play fewer matches in the fall and try to spread them out.
Sat 5/17/03 - Morris vs Village Lions
10-22 Lost
Life was good as the sun shined
brightly on the Morris Women as they took on the Village Lions and won 7-5 in
the 1:00PM match. Toma made sure there was plenty of food and beer for
everyone. The only strange thing for our match was that their "old
boys" side looked a lot like a C-side,(with A-side guys), which it turned
out to be. We had a lot of the troops back in the pack, Irving, Spicka,
Game Guy and Tex were all back at their familiar spots.....Mitch was out there
running things again and we had to do a bit of mixing and matching in the
backline but it was seeming to work. Our boys were all over the pitch and
it looked like we might get back to our winning ways. We played a hard,
more rugby like match but the Village, "young boys" found a crack or
two in the defense and scored two first half tries.
Morris got on board in the second half with a Rich Corney penalty kick and it
seemed we were playing in their half most of the time. Mark Newton scored
on a nice run from 22 metres out and Corney converted. No less than three
players touched the ball down but the referee didn't allow anything for Martin,
Ed Joyce, Rich Corney and maybe one other guy......... Village scored
again and converted. Final score 22-10. The beer and BBQ afterwards
was fantastic......too bad we didn't see some new "old" faces!
See you all in two weeks at The Jersey Cup.....please if you haven't got me a
dues check please do so.
Sat 5/10/03 - Morris @ Long Island Tournament
0-2
A request and cautionary note to Rich Corney and the 2004 Old
Boys captain/den mother. Enter us into the L. I. Tournament on
Mother's Day weekend, don't schedule a match for us the weekend before and bring
ALL the horses out!
As this years captain all I can say is I'd like to get back there and show our
competitors what The Morris Old Boys are capable of. Not having any
experience with this tournament I had no idea how stacked and committed the
teams in our pool would be! To all the men,(and some boys), that
accompanied me out to this tournament and onto the pitch I say thank you.
No one complained or got down on each other as we took it on the chin twice.
I admire the warrior,(almost confederate soldier like), commitment that was
shown on the pitch.
There was a lot of confusion on last Thursday and Friday as to when our first
match was and who had committed to go. With what I THOUGHT were 16/17
players and one maybe I'll be there for the second match we naively set out at
7:15 Saturday morning. The 10 or 11 of us that did make it on time had a
tough time finding our pitch and when we did there were at least 20 Long Island
Lobsters there finishing their warm ups and wondering if they would have a side
to play. We borrowed one of their guys for a #8 and got Ryan Sutherland
and Ryan Young from our high school side to kit up so we'd have 15 players.
Our disarray and Long Island's home field preparedness soon were evident as they
put two or three tries over in what seemed to be the first 10 minutes including
a try off a line out on one of those trick throws into the front guy! We
started to get our shit together in the second half and played in Long Islands
half for most of the 22 minutes.....Ryan Sutherland almost had his first Old
Boys try,( and also prevented one with a nice tackle),.....before he even had a
drivers license and the forwards had it inside the 5 metre line twice but the
bigger guys they had prevented any of us from crossing the line. Ryan with
10 more pounds on ya you would have had that try in the corner! Final
score was L. I. 29 Morris 0.
Man of the match honors in my opinion go to John Sutherland who besides leading
us up and down the pitch from scrumhalf took a clean but tremendous hit from a
forward who had to be at least 6' 4" tall and 260 lbs. John took a
minute but got back on his feet and into the fight.....never showing any sign to
the other side the pain that he must have been in.
We were able to rest for an hour or so and I took in some of the CT. Greys vs
Brockport OB's match as well as White Plains vs Long Island. All four of
those sides had a minimum of 20 guys but some had more! We did get some
help for our 1:00PM match with White Plains as Uncle Tom and Danny from
Montclair along with two of the newer men's side backs came over to lend a hand.
We all played harder better rugby in this match, mainly out of pride and because
we had to. White Plains' team was even better than Long Island and
eventually won the championship against Brockport. We had may more spurts
of real rugby as everyone chipped in with hard tackles and good rucks. The
backs led by Kurt Murrell had some nice breaks to, one resulting in a Morris
try. Through it all there were also some humorous as well as agonizing moments.
Joop's 22 metre drop kick directly into the hands of a White Plains player who
promptly took off for a quick score comes to mind. As I learned throughout
the day this White Plains tournament Old Boys team has played together for 20
years......the passing plays in the backline as well as forward support was
magical......final score White Plains 40 Morris OB's 7.....thank you to Jack
"no hair" for our only try of the day. Man of the match goes to
Uncle Tom, whose energy and enthusiasm as well as hard nosed play got us to all
raise our games. Man of the tournament goes to Teddy Hynes. Ted
showed tremendous effort from beginning to end of both games. He put the
first hit on the opposing forwards on virtually every kick off,(and there were
many). He is a tremendous new asset to our program. Thank you Ted.
Sat 5/3/03 - Morris @ Union
21-33 Lost
It was the best of times in that the cold and drizzle of the
past few weeks was gone! It was the worst of times in that we once again
were overloaded with forwards......had three of our backs injured or away and
although it was billed as an Old Boys game our hosts at Union had to fill in 6
or 7 guys with first and second side players.
Union, after losing the A and B game was still keen for some quick rugby and
perhaps due to the later than late start our boys seemed flat. The first
25 minutes saw three converted tries put across by Union. We were playing
with a scrumhalf and two centres and a wing that had already but their time in
the A and B game so we needed to be slapped in the face a bit. It was at
half-time that the captain made a strategic decision. Limiting Dave
Barrett to only 6 or 7 beers during the B game he replaced himself at #8 and
brought in an A side guy. We also brought in Mike,"I'm ODing on
Advil" Stumpf. Moving out to wing where he could better assess the
situation he brought the troops in shoulder to shoulder before the whistle and
forged a pledge from everyone to put a few tries across ourselves.
Mitch kept the ball tight with the forwards and our second phase started to
roll.....as a relatively new member to Morris I'm not sure but it looked like
the Lions of old were back. Dobbs, Todd Irving, My My and Andy took
control. Game Guy and Tex were at every breakdown with Alex
Ciaraffo......Tony Jones kept control on defense and filled in week side many
times. The result was three scores from Tex, Alex and My My all converted
by Tony. 21-21 with 15 minutes to go. All the while the Union guys
were refilling the backline with rested A side players........a couple of
unlucky passes kept us out for another try or two and some iffy plays/mental
breakdown/just plain being an old boys.....led to two converted scores from
Union. Final score was 33-21.
The afternoon lingered on with some of us with cold beverages under the shade of
the trees at the pitch as we dissected the game with our number one fan Tom
Hamill.
Sat 4/26/03 - Morris vs Connecticut Greys
22-19 Won
Nothing like waking up to another cold and gray day and
thinking to yourself,"boy I get to play rugby", well the more I
thought about it that it is exactly what got 18 of us to the pitch on another
nasty morning........WE HAVE THE ABILITY TO STILL BE PLAYING RUGBY! To
those of you who committed but didn't show shame on you.....you missed a great
match. The Connecticut Greys actually showed up before us and with more
players. The message in this is that most of us realize we only have so
many more games in us and we want to enjoy every last moment on and off the
pitch with our teammates and with the opposition.
Those of us that traveled up to play The Greys last fall were all hoping we
would get off to a faster start this time and that it would all end in a win for
Morris! The handling during the match was sloppy due to the rain that was
ongoing throughout most of the first period,(Connecticut likes to play three
periods so they can get all their guys in), so there were lots of scrumdowns.
Jack, "no hair," Avagliano scored our first try on some nice third
phase ball from within the 5 metre line. We had the lead right out of the
shoot, just the start the Den Mother was hoping for.
Some quick ball by Tony Jones off of a mid field penalty caused by the Greys
being offside on the kickoff led to a kick ahead into our try zone where the
ball scooted by a Grey defender only to be pounced on by Jack for his second try
in just a couple of minutes. Tony Jones nailed the conversion and we are
up 12-0. The Grey came back with a try and conversion of their own by
running the fake switches off the backline play to get the ball deep into our
half and one off their forwards plowed over us for a try and the conversion was
made. 12-7
The second period saw about six or seven sets of fresh legs come in for The Grey
and Iondola, Steve Jones,(last match for Morris was 1979), and Toma lumbered in
to get warm. The momentum remained with us as Joop picked off a Greys pass and
scampered in 30 metres for a try.......Morris kept the ball mostly in
Connecticut's half and that led to a try for the forwards which Tex touched
down. After 50 minutes of rugby Morris 22 Greys 7.
The great thing about this game is being tested when the fatigue starts to set
in. Connecticut controlled the entire third period with some of those
rested horses coming back in......we made a lot of tackles but the support
started to wane when the ball went wide and Connecticut took advantage of that
plowing in for two tries to make the score close at the end 22-19 in favor of
Morris.
The planned BBQ was shot so the two teams enjoyed several cases of beer and
cheap pretzels while watching our A side. Andy, Omar and I took the
remaining stragglers from The Greys to Durkins and finally back to The Sagebrush
to complete the afternoon.
I don't know if the best story of the day goes to Andy for partying the night
before with friends who dropped in unannounced till sun up and then playing the
whole game......and then hosting ANOTHER party Saturday night! It could go
to my friend and old teammate John Kerr who played scrumhalf for The Greys.....he
left a golfing vacation in South Carolina Saturday afternoon by car, he was
dropped off at The Vince Lombardi rest stop at 2:30am and waited for his
teammate Mike Guzzio from The Greys,(he lives in West Caldwell), to pick him up,
telling Guzz he really wanted to make the match against Morris! I guess it
could go to John, "Big Toe," Sutherland who ran into Kevin Trammel
from The Greys. They were old team mates from Texas who hadn't seen each
other in years!
Well done on our part all around although I'd still like to see some more
commitments from people who I thought would be showing their face by now.
NEXT MATCH IS THIS SATURDAY AT UNION-------get to practice------
Old Boys game kicks off around 3:30PM. Please confirm your availability
ASAP
Sat 4/12/03 - Morris @ Bayonne
19-5 Won
As I was still cleaning dirt out of my ears this morning it gave
me another chance to reflect on this past Saturdays rugby. As excited as
many members of the Old Boys seemed to get our season underway we all awoke to a
fairly cold pouring rain and thought,"maybe Bayonne's permit will be
pulled". Well, the skies were clearing as we passed over the highways
leading to Hudson County and as our troops amassed in the parking lot at the
pitch by the river, one thing was clear, we had assembled a strong and
overwhelming force! Our host's Bayonne are only a 12 year old club but
were able to get about 10 or 11 players out early to scout out the most puddles
for us to scrum down in and throw us off our usual fast paced game.
We started the match by a one way prisoner exchange, meaning John Harvey, Dave
Susan and Ralph Scoville crossed over no mans land to play for the enemy. Thank
you again boys for helping out.
With the sides set we kicked off around 12:00PM with sun shining and the wind
howling. This was the first time most of us had touched a rugby ball since
last fall and most of the handling and breakdowns were below par about half the
time but we did manage to stay in Bayonne's half....Jon Epstein was able to take
a rucked ball blind side for our first score. While we searched for our tee Tony
Jones attempted to drop kick off the mud and we were denied the conversion.
Just a few moments later Jon again sliced through the defense after a good
exchange with backline and was able to post the ball down. Tee in hand
Jones converted easily. The blustery half ended 12-0. Ed "no
choice, new papa," Joyce replaced Brian Greer for the second half and we
had the wind at our backsides. It was a good half one that showed our
opponents were tough and would not back down and the managed to put the ball
over but couldn't convert into the wind. Things were slowing down as the
weight of our soaked boots and our jerseys....or maybe our age.....or maybe our
fitness began to take it's toll. We did have one more surge in us as Andy
picked up a loose ball and rambled 15 meters up the middle of the pitch before
dishing off to our fleeter backline, the ball was delivered nicely as Ed Joyce
finished off the exchange with a try. Tony was spot on from a nice angle
and we were up 19-5. After the 50th bad call by the aging referee Geoff
and the first line out not contended for by yours truly the whistle blew and
everybody was relieved to get off the field. We did have a moment of
silence in honor of one of our opponents dads passing and it was off to enjoy a
few cleansing ales on the sidelines and marvel at how dry the field looked as
the A side kicked off.
Contact Craig Chapman Home: 973 227
0279, Cell 201 321 3508 or John
Sutherland if you need to contact the Old Boys.
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