Univ. of California 39 Univ. of British Columbia 7 (halftime: Cal 24-0)

(Berkeley, California) This was no ordinary 5 tries-to-1 mismatch.

Cal yesterday humbled the University of British Columbia 39-7 through a direct, physical approach that rattled the normally formidable visitors. 

Keegan Engelbrecht's precise aerial game plus 7-of-8 goalkicking also played a significant role in a contest the Bears never allowed to become close. Given the long, even history of the World Cup series as well as the Thunderbirds' habituation to BC's Canadian Direct Insurance Premier League, our neighbor's top senior competition, the success of Cal's approach was striking.

Tries in the opening 10 minutes from brothers Danny and Neill Barrett, made possible by the midfield attack of Sean Gallinger and Colin Hawley as well as Engelbrecht's tactical boot, set the stage. But flanker Tom Rooke's one-on-one goalline stop and wing Blaine Scully's ball-jarring tryline collision, on either side of the 25-minute mark, prevented UBC from climbing back into the game.

Engelbrecht then slotted a short penalty goal and the estimable Rooke sold a dummy to ground a 7-pointer, earning Cal a 24-0 lead after 36 minutes. Once more UBC threatened but again knocked on going over the line, the would-be scorer showing the nerves of a replacement, elusive fullback Sean Ferguson having retired following a punishing meeting with a Bear backrower.

In the second period, Engelbrecht added a three-pointer while UBC missed two penalty goal chances; the Bears then sandwiched fourth-quarter tries from Dustin Muhn and Gallinger around the 80th-minute goal of Jon Anthony, who scored here a year ago.

With an injury roll including captain Ben and flyhalf Harry Jones, both BC provincial players, the Tbirds started five freshman and managed little continuity. (Yesterday Charley, the third brother, was felled by apparently serious ankle damage.) Yet the experience of Cal's senior-dominated lineup was less prominent than a kind of blood-in-the-mouth aggression, suggesting last year's national championship loss to Brigham Young, in which the Bears surrendered a halftime lead, has not settled well in Berkeley.

Then too, yesterday's contest looks to have been Witter Rugby Field's penultimate match before nearby Memorial Stadium's multiyear renovation, which will dislodge the rugby team from its enclave of partisans. Next month's homecoming match, against a St. Mary's side that startled Cal a year ago in Moraga, looms as a final, emotional chapter.

BYU, on hand to scout yesterday's game, this Saturday faces 2009 Super League semifinalist Denver Barbarians in a neutral-site fixture. With Cal and the Cougars having contested the collegiate final each of the past four seasons, the club-college game could be another milestone en route to Palo Alto.

Univ. of California 39 Univ. of British Columbia 7 (halftime: Cal 24-0)

Univ. of California
Tries: Danny Barrett, Neill Barrett, Tom Rooke, Dustin Muhn, Sean Gallinger
Conversions: Keegan Engelbrecht (4)
Penalty goals: Keegan Engelbrecht (2)

Univ. of British Columbia
Tries: Jon Anthony
Conversion: Connor Fuller

Referee: Pete Smith (Pacific Coast)
Attendance: 1,100 (estimated) 

Related: 2009: Univ. of California 31 Univ. of British Columbia 15 (halftime: Cal 11-8)

Comments

[off the hook]

What I found interesting was the size of the crowd for a Wednesday at 3:30 match.

Classes are in session, the first baseball game of the year is being hosted, the former President of the United States is speaking on campus...and the stands are full for a rugby match.

Young kids wearing rugby jersey's everywhere, dad's taking the afternoon off. Old players in the beer garden telling stories. More than a dozen current and former Eagles.

Joe Fonzi, Fox Bay Area channel 2 sports with camera man in attendance.

The Northern California rugby seen is really becoming legit! Golden Gate, Stanford, St Mary's all draw spectators as well.

Media, fans, good venues, music, scoreboards, concessions, good ref, AR's, #4's, good teams, good rugby!

[congrats]

UBC had a really good Fall season, but have been hit with injuries in the second half of the season. I saw an internet streamed game of them last week at Velox on Vancouver Island and the Thunderbirds looked strong, losing by 10 and looking the better team at the end of the match. Velox is a big experienced team, with a couple of Canadian players, a Kiwi Super 14 player from the A. Blues who is waiting his residency to play for Canada, several other foreign players. Anyway, UBC is beat up with injuries, but this still is an impressive victory for the US.

BTW, UBC coach Spence McTavish was just inducted into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame, a great honor.

[college rugby]

Why isn't BYU playing Golden Gate? I thought the college champs verses the Super league champs was a good idea.

Cal beat NYAC twice and OMBAC once, I think they also lost a close match to OMBAC when Clever was playing for them. OMBAC had about six Eagles on that team.

BYU already beat Denver last year? They should be playing GG, rep the colleges boys and beat GG.

[go bears]

Cal had a couple freshmen on the field at games end themselves. Seamus Kelly of Xavier NY and Brendan Daly of St. Ignatius SF.

Cal's roster is full of Catholic boys. Besides Xavier and SI, they have players from Sacred Heart (SF), Jesuit and Christen Brothers (SAC), De La Salle (East Bay), Junipero Serra (South Bay), Loyola and St. Francis (LA) and Cathedral Catholic (SD).

Its starting to look like the Mormons verses the Catholic...just kidding.

[college]

Thats cuz most high school rugby teams are at private catholic schools since the public school system hasnt adopted rugby yet.

[College vs Super League & Men's D1]

BYU was scheduled to play SFGG in Provo the second week in March, but, when the super league schedule was moved up a week, it was no longer a "pre-season" tune-up for SFGG so they had to cancel. BYU was scheduled to play the Las Vegas Blackjacks as well earlier this season but the game fell through due to (amazingly enough) torrential rains in Las Vegas. The city wouldn't let the teams on their field (public park).

[ecm]

regarding the physicality of the match - agree w/ Kurt - i have not seen Cal play with more flat-out agression than they did on Wednesday. I've seen them play sharper, more clinically, more accurately, but never with a more punishing, agressive mindset.

other random thoughts:

1. i would not want Cal's starting #8 bearing down on me - his "retirement" of UBC's #15...painful to watch/hear

2. in the last 2 yrs i've seen 2 breakaway takedowns from behind result in ambulances being called to the pitch for severe leg injuries. Besides the takedown of the UBC center on wed, st mary's lost an all-am ctr last year vs. stanford with a carbon copy tackle that resulted in severe leg injury. being tackled on high/at shoulder level while running at +pace seems to frequently result in severe orthopedic damage. is there a safer way to take down a player on a breakaway, to avoid taking the runners legs out from under them?

3. UBC could/should have had 3-4 more tries and this game was closer than the scoreline indicates. it seems like they were constantly at Cal's door, espec in the 2nd 40, but just could not get through. Their effort at the breakdown/rucks was the best i've seen in norcal college rugby this year and the quick ball out of rucks was impressive. hat's off to the Canadians...they took what Cal dished like men.

[SoCal]

OMBAC did beat Cal in the College champs verses the SL champs and it was a big victory. With Cal having beat the NYAC the first year, OMBAC was under pressure to represent the SL the next year.

Fortunately, OMBAC was loaded. Eagle Dan Payne was the captain, Eagles Clever and Hawkins rounded out a great backrow. Big prop Mike French also an Eagles, a tough Kiwi who scored the match winning try in the SL final named Hafu, Eagles pool lock Latu Paloka, former Cal AA Jake Stanfill all in the forwards. The backs were loaded as well. Dave Burt led the SL in scoring, U20 Eagles Sam Gonzales, Brian Barnard who led the NA4 in tries that year, Eagles Riaan Hamilton and the best back was BYU AA and Eagle Hullinger who retired early was concussion issues.

Cal led 18-17 at half. The match ended OMBAC 36, Cal 30. It was a great match. Todd Clever charged down a kick and rumbled 20m for the score that won the game.

Full credit to both teams. Anyone who thinks the best college teams like Cal and BYU can't play with the top clubs aren't paying attention.

[champs vs champs]

The RSL guys with their pre-season tune up bullsh*t is a laugh.

Golden Gate is ducking the match.

The colleges have "tuned-up" the SL teams alright. Beaten their ass is more like it. BYU would beat GG thats why the match isn't going to take place. BYU is ass deep in snow, GG played some Fall rugby, what do they have to be afraid us, other than losing.

St Mary's beat GG earlier in the year, when GG said they fielded a mixed team. BYU will beat Denver this week, but either way its not the same. GG and BYU should play the champs vs the champs match.

GG is ducking the game.

[college]

It is a shame Cal never puts up any highlights of its matches. They film them all with professional quality and certainly have the resources. It would just be nice to actually see some of the things we hear about in these high quality college matches. BYU has started to post highlights of its matches albeit from helicopter distance in one of them.

It would be a great boost to the coverage of the game. Video drives sports. Give us highlights please. Benefit is much higher over the cost of potentially being scouted. Hard to scout highlight film anyways.

[How Rude]

"Champs",

For a mormon, you sure swear a lot.

Also: SL teams rarely put their full squad on the field vs the College teams. I know when NYAC lost to Cal a few years back, it was mostly a B team. (no disrespect to Cal)

[hold on]

Rude,

You have brought shame on the NYAC with your comments. Cal beat a Chris Mayo led first team in round one. The lineups are available, it was their team.

In round two in Ft Lauderdale, when Cal again won it was the NYAC first team once again. Don't make us keep these posts alive by listing the lineups in both of these matches to prove your (the NYAC's) anon cowardly behavior.

If we are to believe you are the spokesman of NYAC, you bring shame to a great organization. Take it like a man, the NYAC was beat by college kids, twice.

Where is the NYAC mouth Bruce McLane when honor is on the line?

[play the game]

Amen on the excuses...

[Fact checker]

B team ?! NYAC had their best guys on the field on each occasion. Rewriting history is reserved for USA Rugby administrators.

[web sites]

"Benefit is much higher over the cost of potentially being scouted. Hard to scout highlight film anyways."

College:

David Symth the coach of BYU was in attendance at the Cal v UBC match. Same at the LVI, where he shot a video of the Cal v San Diego St match. I don't think a worry about being scouted has anything to do with the lack of highlights on offer. All the top teams are scouting one another.

There are highlights on the Cal web site just nothing current. Its a really good web site, with decades worth of archives, best informational site out there. They also have a real-time twitter match service which is better than Mobile Score. But I agree, more video highlights of matches, maybe even streaming their matches would make their site better.

BYU does a great job with those audio clips on their site. Tennessee is another team with a good site, a lot of information.

In general I can't believe how poor most of the sites are. There are some excellent teams with really poor, out-of-date web sites. Army and Navy at the top of the list. St Marys very poor. Most teams could do better.

[college]

most sites are crap for sure. Army has no excuse with all the money they have now. But these highlights dont even have to be on the sites. Throw them up on youtube. The more often good quality footage of college matches come up instead of "huge rugby hits" when people search for rugby, the better.

[college rugby]

I dont think Bruce or anyone from nyac claimed the above and none would certainly deny it. Bruce himself has gushed on arn podcasts about the athletes Cal has and the challenge nyac faces when playing against them. No talking down or even underestimating them. He said it was going to be tough going up against a Cal roster that all could clean their own weight, etc.

They may be the level above but realistically speaking the only advantage they have is whatever age can give you in strength and skill development. They all have jobs and more responsibilities than a college student. Meanwhile all 60+ Cal players are training 6 times a week in a elite varsity training environment. Yes they are also working on degrees but as far as training they have the advantage.

So not exactly and NFL team vs a college football team. Still impressive though

[Pete M]

In the post by "Champ dunno sh*t", he stated: "Your a moron" which was directed to "champs vs champs" I would like to point out that "Your" is used incorrectly and he meant to say "You're" What is that old saying "Those who live in glass houses..."

[SD Hitman]

The other advantage Cal has over other clubs (college and RSL) is superior coaching and support staff. What other club has two former national coaches, video analysis, and a multitude of physiotherapists, trainers, equipment managers, and ortho doctors that attend nearly all their matches.

JC and TB alone can provide more game relevant insight with respect to American competition and the American athlete that any of the remaining top 10 schools would pay to have in their camps.

When Cal has more upperclassmen then underclassmen starting, they should be clear favorites 9 out of 10 games vs RSL teams.

[college]

Cal has every advantage a team could want to have. Best athletes. Check. Best facilities. Check. Best coaching. Check. Best support staff. Check. Admissions help. Check. Great school. Check. BEST Team Culture. CHECK.

Almost every one of those advantages are ones they created and built themselves. So damn frustrating. A couple schools out there have the foundation to build all of that. Places like PSU. But you have to have a head guy who can create greatness and lead young men to do great things. Cal has Jack Clark. That's their biggest advantage.

[aint no JC]

Is that a shot at PSU? That place has done an amazing job of taking all of the steps to build what Cal has. Theyre only mistake was putting the wrong person in charge. The northeast and especially the middle of Pa is a tough place to draw anyone in the small pool of people out there that are qualified to not only coach but run a top-notch college rugby program.