Varsity - U19 v Ridgefield HS (Conn) Cherry Blossom Tournament

Despite giving up about 15 penalties to 3-4 for the opponents and a long breakaway that a fast defense ran down before Ridgefield could score; Exiles hold onto a 0-0 tie. A bit frustrating as no side was called due to an injured player with the Exiles about to have a 5 meter scrum with less than 5 minutes to play.

What we need to work on:

Communication between half backs and forwards. Too many times we had an overlap in the backfield and we went to a pick and go back into their forwards negating the advantage. Fly half needs to let scrum half know when they have the advantage. Scrum half needs to tell forwards to feed him the ball.

Lineouts - Ridgefield drew both our forwards and backs off sides by catching a clean ball and bringing the jumper down without passing to the scrum half. Until the ball comes out of the lineout - all backs and forwards not taking part in the lineout must remain 10 meters behind the offside line. Forwards in the lineout must remain in the lineout and not step in front of the ball until the lineout has ended. Usually the referee will keep his hand in the air and drop it once the lineout has ended. See law 19 governing touch and lines outs: http://laws.worldrugby.org/?law=19

Scrums - Tight five need to work on their binding and positioning in scrums. Props were too high which prevented hooker from getting into proper position. Charlie Heim once you get set need to stabilize scrum and not shift your position - this caused problems for 2nd row. Rodloy, your butt was higher than your hips causing downward pressure instead of straight ahead pressure.

Looseballs - Ridgefield won the majority of loose balls - as a team we need to be more aggressive at scooping up loose balls on the ground - just dont watch the opponent steal our ball.

Rucks - we started out the game consistently off sides on the ruck - 4-5 penalties before we finally adjusted. The offside line runs through the hindmost foot of the hindmost player in the ruck. You must either join the ruck or get onsides (behind the last player's hid most foot who is in the ruck). We also had several infractions for hands in the rucks or had their head and shoulders lower than their hips (butt up in air). See law 16 to learn about rucks: http://laws.worldrugby.org/?law=16

Backs on attack - too many backs played too flat so that you had to slow down to catch the pass, need to play steeper on attack so you accelerate into the pass. Also, wingers were getting forced out of bounds giving Ridgefield lineout - once you run out of room either pass or run inside.