11/22 UNCC v. Davidson, UNCC B v. Belmont

1:00 PM UNC Charlotte B v. Belmont Barbarians

In the morning prior to my arrival at the pitch there

 was a high school game played between two schools from low-income Charlotte areas playing a great game of rugby. It's great to see high school rugby being so successful in North Carolina.

My first game of the day was Belmont v. UNC Charlotte B. Belmont is a club newly formed just south of Charlotte. They are going through their first year of games. The only special note I have from the game is that one of the Belmont scrumhalves tried to pull a fast one on me, faking the ball coming out of the scrum - I had not had anybody try to do that in one of my games before.

Belmont wrote this match report for the game. As a referee it's always satisfying to hear that a game was well played and everyone had a great time:

http://belmontrfc.wordpress.com/

Belmont went to UNCC with a purpose and it showed. From the start of the game Belmont layed hard hits and used their power and speed to hamer the young kids of charlotte. Belmont played a complete game.they destroyed uncc in the scrums dr

iving them back off the ball and pushing back down the field. Rucking was a little slow at first, but then the Barbos started hit the rucks strong which really killed any chance of uncc making a play. Our strong point saturday was without a doubt the backline. They held strong on defense and contained the young speed on uncc with ease. On offense they drove up the field beautifuly passing the ball back and forth like pros. This was by far the best game the Barbos have played yet. The flow of the game was great and everyone did their job, and did it well. We now have completed a great feat we finished our fall with a .500 record. Great job guys that is a feat that other clubs who have been around 7 or 8 years have yet to do.  Our 

Man of the Match was of course Henny. Henny you will be missed on the pitch. We better still see you around the club. Thanks for all the hard play and instruction we appreciate everything.

3:00 PM UNC Charlotte v. Davidson

I did not expect to have a lot of difficulty with this game - but my ankle/fitness sure did having just ran that full game. These boys were hitting a lot harder than I expected them too, but the game was overall rather clean with your typical D3 college men issues at the breakdown. I feel I let the coaches influence me a little too much in this game, actually listening to the sideline moaning a little too much and I think it may have affected my game, which is unfortunate.

UNC Charlotte ended up winners, but only after a lengthy break following a serious looking head injury where the game was stopped for over 30 minutes for a player to be stretchered off. The player simply caught the shoulder of the Davidson player he was trying to tackle....a hooker with a low center of gravity and plenty of momentum.

At any rate, I wonder waht the result would have been had there not been the long break for UNC Charlotte, the more experienced side, to catch their breath during the injury break. Prior to the break the game was drawn, leading to a final 10 minutes where Charlotte managed to run in a couple of tries.

11/8 UNC Greensboro v. Triad Rugby Club

I'm writing this post too far from when I actually did this game.

I recall it being a very close, I was rather liberal with my breakdown laws considering the friendly and lower level nature of the game. UNC-G ended up pulling off the win with a try at the end of the game.

One major incident I recall from the game is when there was a broken wrist, play stopped, player totally capable of removing himself from the field, no head injuries, nothing. Campus Rec officer, however, insists the paramedics must be called and the player cannot leave the field, paramedics show up and allow him to walk to the ambulance, but then instead of taking a ride in an ambulance the player simply has his friend drive him to the emergency room to have his hand looked at.

20 minutes later, play resumed with about 10 to go.

11/7 Davidson v. Charlotte Socials

Following last weekend's debacle with my whistle, I set out to try and not blow it so much this time - failing miserably.

The stage was set, Friday night:

Davidson, a team who had just started playing rugby, none of the team members had played more than a handful of games in their lifetime.

vs.

Charlotte Socials, a team in their twilight years of rugby, out to inflict dirty tricks on a bunch of young ambitious rugby players. There were also a number of Charlotte super league players in the mix as their game the following day was cancelled (Washington RFC).

I should have realized before it was not going to be easy.

I had not refereed any of the charlotte socialite players before (aside from a few at 7s), so they were unfamiliar with my style and immediately set out to test my tolerance levels - both in actual play and how much they could talk to me, after all, all of these guys were at least 10 years older than myself, in some cases probably 30 years. The Charlotte Socialites were coming at me from all directions, breaking every subtle law they could, barking at me about every call, moaning, walking, and having beer breaks on the sideline. To Davidson's credit, they put up a very good match for these old men, using their youthful pace and athleticism to bowl through them and score some very good breakaway tries.

In the end, Charlotte came out winners of a close game, I think it was about 24-20 or something around there. 

Despite all the barking, the socialites did pick up on a few errors I made, letting me know in exuberant fashion, including a strange situation:

Socialite player makes a typical HORRIBLE chip kick, he might have been able to do these 20 years ago, but I think age caught up with this guy. At any rate, an ignorant Davidson player decides to "volleyball" hit this ball on the descent of the kick (making it not a charge down, which is what I'm guessing the davidson player thought it was). I call knock on advantage charlotte, at which point a davidson player claims the ball on the ground - advantage over - scrum charlotte. As it turns out, Davidson player was in front of the knock on...making it OFFSIDES, penalty to charlotte, error by me, never to be made again.

Overall, the game was not a fun experience with all the abuse, but I learned a lot from dealing with these older guys trying to pull one over on me. At the post game social I had a lot of compliments from the Davidson side (probably because I penalized charlotte so much, rightfully so).