Big league trip for giant San Diego youth team

A teenage tour squad of more than 100 today arrives in the San Francisco Bay Area for a whirlwind six-game slate, plus a highly anticipated college match.

The San Diego Mustangs will face the Marin Highlanders, Oakland's Pits, and Lamorinda in matches at Treasure Island's Rocca Field and St. Mary's College Vincent Field, two of the Bay Area's leading grounds. The schedule includes under-14, frosh-soph / under-16, and varsity / under-19 contests.

The Mustangs also will attend the Cal-St. Mary's match at Witter Rugby Field, as guests of the Bears. The homecoming game is expected to sell out since it features a pair of national contenders and will be the venue's rugby finale for the next two years.

In visiting northern California, many of the very large tour party probably will play at dedicated rugby facilities for the first time. San Diego lacks such fields, and for youngsters like the Mustangs who are accustomed to local schools and parks, the effect can be eye-opening.

Further, the students' trip to Witter could prove a breakthrough demonstration of rugby as a full-on varsity pursuit. At least some youngsters will leave will visions of one day playing before thousands of fans in stadia with music, concessions, and so on.

Separately, Kevin Swiryn scored twice as the USA opened the 3-day Adelaide 7s with a 24-21 win over England. Provided the Eagles win 1 of 2 matches tomorrow against Australia or Niue, the Swiryn-led squad will should advance to Sunday's Cup quarterfinals, claiming at least 6 points and thereby moving past Canada in the 7s World Series standings.

Comments

[cali]

No Pacific Northwest, no Utah or Arizona. Great places and people but they should go their own way.

No SoCal, or NorCal...just the California Rugby Union, CRU.

The best youth, high school, university, club and rep rugby in those United States of America.

[smoke & mirrors]

Go to the irb website, there is a great 2 minute clip of emerick/swiryn try against engalnd from today

[Migel Nelville]

Anyone else hear the rumor that USA Rugby awarded Rugby California a $40,000 grant?

[blah blah blah]

Cali if you eliminate Utah than California won't have the best rugby in these united states. Utah does not have the volume but what they do have in the HS and college ranks exceeds the quality of most of what California has.

[cali]

No disrespect intended "blah", Utah rugby is very good, they also have two national champions in the HS and college ranks.

However, CRU is a concept that is way overdue. Dividing up regions to suit these small-minded union officials makes no sense.

Maybe Utah should go its own way for the same reason. Think how stupid it is that California isn't a TU, but instead part of California, together with Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Utah is. Dumb.

Union power-brokers with no vision is we got here and its time for somebody to change this.

Heres the real thing to consider...its not working. Therefore be open to change, or pull the neck of the TU out from its shoulder blades and put a sharp through it. The party is over for the TU's of old. They make no sense and the dues payers are tired of funding this nonsense.

[My Dinner With Andre The Giant]

It's official: we'll be playing Russia in the next Rugby World Cup.

[7s]

So Emerick is banned again. Huge blow to the squad as he was playing really well. I guess he just can't control himself.

[Flynn Hagerty]

"It's official: we'll be playing Russia in the next Rugby World Cup."

Cool, new depths of ignominy to explore.

[Jasongatties]

Does the Emerick ban only apply to 7's? Just curious.

BTW...we're in the semifinals vs Argentina.

[Jasongatties]

USA-28 Argentina-12

We've reached the finals vs Samoa!!! If you are up, ESPN360.com will begin coverage shortly.

[Kurt]

Great call Jason. Separately, no word from USARFU on Emerick's status

[Jasongatties]

thanks Kurt

[ecm]

we mean business/for any doubters about commitment of Cali rugby

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/21/BA4R1CJ912.DTL&tsp=1

[7s]

Wow.

[Skinner]

Colorado and Utah should team up.

Lots of youth, HS and College rugby between them.

[Pete M]

I always wondered why in 1994 Nor Cal didn't go with So Cal and form just a CRU...

[jm]

I'm in the dark ... what did Paul Emerick do to get a ban. Please define/describe 'ban'

thank you

[Preston Gordon]

I was the ref for Saturday's match between the San Diego side and the PITS team at SFGG. It was mostly freshmen/sophmores (U17), and it was an excellent match - fast and clean, and the players knew what they were doing for the most part.

My impression was the following: if this is what these players look like now, then we're in for some really good college rugby in about 5 years. I think it's good already, especially at the top schools, but clearly the work people have done with youth rugby is paying off. It should continue to do so.

For the record, the score was PITS 12-35 San Diego. At halftime it was 12-20. PITS scored 2 tries in the first half, converting one. San Diego scored 4 in the first half and 3 in the second, converting none.

I should also mention that what I saw of the preceding match (between Marin and San Diego, for the younger players) was encouraging too.

Oh, and to Kurt's point about dedicated rugby facilities - more than once I heard the visitors talking about how cool it was to be in a "real" rugby clubhouse.

[Michael]

Ramon is a great coach and took a risk bringing his boys to Northern California. California players, either Northern or Southern are still from the same state, and we have more in common with this great game than either our politicians or our detractors realize.

At some point we are going to play a great match...the best high school in NorCal and the best in SoCal and nearly all of the players a year or two later will be playing in colleges for the National Championship and the USA national team. What they will all have in common is they are from California.

They will have that shared tradition because California will make rugby a sanctioned high school sport in the state with the full support of high schools in the state.

[Leksan]

Lamo enjoyed hosting the Mustang's for four matches yesterday at St. Mary's. It is great to see the budding of a new cross-state rivalry.

Unfortunately the long overdue merging of California's youth and HS rugby, Rugby California, may have met an impassable rift: NorCal is holding to a U19 eligibility standard that requires HS enrollment; SoCal has decided to adopt the USAR eligibility standard that allows HS graduates and college students on their U19 teams. As a result there will be no U19 State Championship this year, and the breakup of Rugby California seems likely.

[Preston Gordon]

"I was the ref for Saturday's match between the San Diego side and the PITS team at SFGG."

Strike Saturday, replace with Friday. My mistake (it was a pretty long weekend of rugby).

[wild wild west]

What dumb-shits the SoCal people are if they are allowing HS grads to play in the U19 comp. This will put an end to the love affair with State based orgs. I was in favor, but not now.

[My Dinner With Andre The Giant]

Dumb shits indeed. I'm a coach with a So Cal U19 team, and I agree that it's asinine.

[Gordon Wright]

Kudos to Ramon Samaniego for organizing this trip. I coach the Marin Highlanders U14 team, and since both our team and the Mustangs were undefeated, it was a valuable chance to test our two programs.

The 10-10 tie was ample evidence of the parity among the teams of California.

Kudos to SFGG for hosting us all; to the Pelican refs who eagerly stepped in; and to the Mustangs, who have set the standard for what we hope will be a home and away set piece for years to come.