This was an interesting one. The Canton, Oklahoma team has quite the story.
Canton, OK is town with a population of 600, about an hour and a half west of Tulsa. The middle of nowhere, literally. The Canton high school plays 8 man football in the fall. Two years ago the kids were pretty bored in winter time and went to see a rugby film called "Forever Strong." After the film they decided they all wanted to play rugby, and the football coach who was sitting with an 0-8 football team decided....what the hell...lets try it. So, the football coach set on his way coaching rugby, which he had never ever played or seen, to these kids as their spring sport. The team also adopted the "Ka Mate" haka, they performed this before this game and also before all of their football games.
Two years later...and they're in the Western Playoffs! Goes to show how much athetlicism counts. The kids may know little about rugby tactics, but sure were all athletes. Now not only did they get pretty good at rugby quickly with no knowledge, their rugby playing helped their football. The team went from last place in the 8man conference to state finalists!
Now on to the match. St Thomas Aquinas were clearly a class above the boys from Canton - but Canton certainly played with heart. Canton had some some of craziest tactics I had ever seen as well - tactics you could only see coached into a rugby game by a football coach. The way they played basically looked like the video below...just no blocking. Lots of wildly thrown passes, and on penalties they preferred to throw the ball like a football to the other side of the field for a player to run on to it, crazy!
The conditions for the match were 85 degrees, artificial turf. St Thomas Aquinas dominated every part of the game, but were caught off guard by the crazy tactics of Canton. Canton had a nice series of offloads early in the 1st half, but knocked on the final offload to score the try. On full time Aquinas had put in all of their subs and Canton pushed one in off a penalty play near in-goal.
St Thomas Aquinas (36)
Tries: 1:30 (c), 10:08 (c), 23:06 (c), 25:40, 34:00, 40:00
Canton High School (5)
Tries: 70:00
Notes
-I didn't feel to well. I felt I was starting to have too much empathy for the losing side...the same issue that got me in trouble for the STH v. Strake Jesuit game. I managed to keep it out of my head, and maintain my standard for the canton kids. To the Canton kids and the coaches credit...the canton boys did understnad the concept of on-side and rolling away at the tackle. What they didnt understand was the difference between dangerous tackle and safe. This was communicated and prevented.
-had one canton tackler not release the ball carrier. I penalized him and he didnt understand. He said "I dont want to let him get back up." my response...the ball carrier is not allowed.
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