Super Series
Following the June NASCs, at JMU (my last blog post), the Women's 15s National Team traveled to Canada to compete in the Super Series. The Super Series featured the 1st and 2nd place finishers in the 2014 Women's World Cup, England and Canada, and the team that's still arguably the best in the world, New Zealand, and of course, the physical, scrappy USA side.
The USA WNT brought a young, inexperienced squad to the Super Series, in hopes of giving younger players experience and building a strong and wide base for the 2017 World Cup. There were a total of 17 new caps on tour, with only 5 players returning from the 2014 Word Cup. An additional 5 players (including yours truly) had been capped before this tour.
In the first match, against England, 13 of those new caps made an appearance. The Eagles struggled early with England's pace, and their offense, still undergoing tweaks and changes, wasn't as efficient as they would've liked. They were still able to put 13 points on the board. However, just like their offense, the USA defense was a little disjointed and allowed 39 England points for a final of 39-13.
The Eagles faced Canada in their second match, and for a while, it looked like Canada would run away with the game. However, the USA rallied, and with some "cheeky" chip kicks from Jess Wooden, hard running lines by Jordan Gray and smashing hits from Hope Rogers, they pulled off a 36-28 victory over Canada, on Canada Day, mind you. That's right, the USA beat Canada on Canada Day.
Going into their final match against New Zealand, the USA was confident in their offensive scheme and excited to test their mettle against a strong Kiwi side. Fueled by their desire to prove themselves and their growing connections with one another, they put together a well-executed and strong first half, trailing the Black Ferns 15-14.
The second half was a different story, in fact, maybe it was a different genre of story altogether. New Zealand ticked off try after try and wound up adding 32 points to their tally, while holding the Eagles to a goose egg, making the final score 47-14.
Despite the second half, the USA Women showed that they could, in the words of Head Coach, Pete Steinberg, "play with the best...but we just couldn't do it for 80 minutes."
The Eagles finished 1-2 in the Super Series, but they consistently improved their play and honed their attacking and defensive patterns. With such a young and inexperienced team, it will be exciting to see how this foundation grows and develops over the next year and a half leading up to the 2017 World Cup. And let's not forget, we beat Canada on Canada Day.
2015 7s Nationals
This summer was a hot one, and not just the weather (excuse my corniness). The Women's 7s season saw the rise of new programs, the unseating of old champions and some of the most competitive games ever.
I threw my hat in with Scion Rugby for the summer season, and I am so very glad I did. We brought on some young talent, some old talent (I'm included in that group), some foreign talent and a lot of personalities to assemble a squad that could potentially be the best in the country.
At the start of the season, I couldn't participate, because of my involvement with the 15s WNT. I watched, cheering from the sidelines, as we took second to NOVA in our first tournament. This was a great start, but we faltered in our second tournament appearance, and finished 4th.
However, Scion would right itself, pulling most of the roster, which was spread out across the country, together in the DC area. By the end of the regular season, we had beaten NOVA by a pretty hefty margin to take a tournament title, before heading into regional play.
For the past 11 years, NOVA has been the team to beat in our region. They have won the MARFU playoffs each of those 11 years, and only the Furies have been close to taking them down. This year, it was Scion's turn. In the MARFU playoffs, we didn't lose a game--didn't come close--and in the Championship match against NOVA, we continued that winning streak with a decisive victory. For the first time in 11 years, the Mid-Atlantic region saw a new Women's Rugby 7s Champion--the Scion Sirens.
Scion tried to ride the wave of their MARFU successes into Nationals in Iowa. However, Iowa is in the literal middle of nowhere and has no beaches, so the wave petered out a bit. We had the eventual tournament champions, ARPTC, and tournament runners-up, Seattle, in our freaking pool play, and we drew ARPTC in the first match. Though we played them closer than any team that summer, we dropped the match 7-5.
That first match seemed to deflate our sails. Not only had the wave petered out, but we were in the rugby doldrums. The National tournament didn't go so well for us and we ended up going 3-3 and finishing god-knows where. Though it was a tough National Tournament, Scion built a foundation in 2015 for some exciting developments in 2016 (coming up later in the article).2015 WPL Season
This fall's WPL season was the toughest season of rugby I have ever been involved in. Back in 2013, I was a part of the James River Women's Rugby Team when River first tried their hand at D1 rugby. We didn't win a game. That season was more enjoyable than this WPL season.
The DC Furies finished 7th in 2014, so there was plenty of room for improvement. However, going through some coaching changes, losing some key players and dealing with balancing a WPL side and a D2 side, caused the infrastructure to crack a bit, and the Furies struggled.
We lost our first 4 games of the season. The loss to Atlanta, in Atlanta, was a tough match, and we fought for that loss. We didn't play that well, but we didn't play badly, as we had early in the season. When they came to DC for our 5th match of the season, we controlled the match. However, we got ambitious. We tried to earn points for the standings, instead of trying to win the game, and we passed up a couple of penalty kicks in order to score tries. We wound up not scoring anything as a result, but neither did Atlanta, and the match ended in a 0-0 tie. Seriously, I'm not making that up. Two Premier League teams managed to play 80 minutes of rugby without scoring a single point between them.
In our final match of the season, against New York, were desperate to put one in the win column. We brought it to New York, with as much physicality as we could muster. Behind the foot of Kimber Rozier, we were able to put points on the board and gain field position. However, in the last couple of minutes of the game, we were tied, 10-10.
That's when yours truly decided to take some risks and jump the passing lane to pick off a pass from a lineout. Our back line subsequently ran a series of phases and put us within New York's 22, and a one, two punch from Ellen Triemel and myself sent me scampering, legs cramping, over the try line as time expired. We were able to end our tough season with a 17-10 victory.
The Furies ended the regular season on a high note, however we couldn't produce at Nationals and wound up dropping both of our games--the first to ORSU and the second to Atlanta. Though our matches didn't bring much excitement, the National tournament was full of excitement. The All Blues beat the Amazons in a nail biter, with Ruth Bryson making a game saving tackle as time has expired, and the Championship match was excellent, with Glendale eventually taking home the title.
Following the WPL season, I once again joined Scion Rugby to play some 7s in a couple of tournaments. In November, we trekked up to New York to compete in the New York 7s Tournament. Usually, I try to avoid any uncomfortably cold weather, but playing rugby in the cold is often worth the discomfort, and besides it was unseasonably warm this past November.
Scion took a lot of talented players, who had never played together, to New York. Despite lacking a practiced rapport, we we able to bond quickly and went undefeated in pool play. We won a tough semi-final match against the Northeast. However, we couldn't finish against an experienced Canadian squad, and we came back to DC with silver medals.
In Tobago, Scion added even more new faces to the squad. After a strong showing in the first couple of matches, we dropped a close one to Atlantis, who finished 2nd in last year's Tobago Tournament.
On the second day, we won our last pool match, and then came up against a strong all-star Canadian side in Aptoella. A few early mistakes put us behind the eight ball, and we couldn't quite rally sufficiently to pull out the win. However, a 2-point loss to the eventual champions wasn't so bad. We ended up beating the Northeast to claim 3rd in the tournament.
NASCs in Florida
Ahhh, good old Tigertown--the USA WNT has seen a lot of the Detroit Tigers training facility. This year Tigertown hosted about 250 women rugby players, from the high school lever up to the senior level.
I played on the Bruins senior side. In our first match, we smoked our opponents. Though a 55-5 point win was a lot of fun, our opponents weren't short on talent, and they went on to win their second match. On the other hand, we lost our second match.
However, the win/loss column wasn't what this assembly was about. This assembly was about selecting players for the 2016 WNT pool and developing the game in the USA. I believed we did both, and managed to play some of the most competitive 15s matches on US soil.
Upcoming
My next rugby adventure will land me in Vegas for the Vegas 7s tournament. Scion, which I didn't mention, has formed a National Development Academy, and we will field two teams at this tournament.
I also failed to mention that I was invited to the OTC to train for a week in a selection camp for the Sao Paulo stop on the HSBC 7s World Series Tour. Though I didn't make the squad, I relished in the opportunity to train with the USA 7s WNT for a change. I'm growing to like 7s more and more, and Vegas will be yet another opportunity to play against some excellent competition. Look for more posts in the next week, on our adventures in Sin City.
