These are private match notes for the Exiles Middle School U15 team:

A combination of illnesses and people put of town found only 13 Exiles at Mount Saint Mary's University which was hosting the Maryland Youth Rugby Festival. Arden Youth Rugby did send Alex "Gomez" Turse to play with us. Many thanks to Arden. Prior to the game the coaches agreed to play 14 on 14 so there was not a mismatch. However, one area that we could not compensate for was lack of reserves. Back in the 1970's two substitutions were allowed for injuries only - if a 3rd player got hurt you played short which was not unusual. In the modern game; up to 7 substitutes can be used for both injuries and tactical purposes. This makes the pace of the game much faster especially in the second half. Normally, except for exceptions such as blood time, once a player leaves you cannot return, but in the festival "rolling subs" were allowed which means players could go on and off.

The MS Exiles held their own for the first 12 minutes as the game remained scoreless, Prince Williams was a bigger side and they maintained possession of the ball very well putting our players on the defensive. Eventually, Prince Williams scored twice in the first half at the 12 & 15 minute marks. This made the score 14-0 at half. Some areas to work on; the referee found the binding in scrums to be inadequate by both teams so uncontested scrums were used after the first five minutes.

In the second half, Finn Pillar opened up the scoring after an alert play just two minutes in. It then became a defensive battle until the 12 minute mark when Prince Williams scored their first points of the second half. That seemed to open up the floodgates. Twice PW had penalties that they tapped and our defenders waited for the runner to come to them rather than initiated the tackle by advancing as soon as the ball is tapped. Two easy scores for them. PW scored 2 more unanswered scores to win 43-5. A regulation match for U15's is 60 minutes (30 minutes halves). Players should be prepared to play at least that long. As a team, we seemed to tire out at about the 12 minute mark of each half.

Tackling also needs work. The referee warned players several times about high tackles and we eventually received a yellow card. Players were not tracking allowing Prince William's ball carriers to juke our players and run past them. There were way too many low percentage desperation passes - sometimes it is better to accept the tackle to set up a ruck rather than to throw the ball away.

Now all the above is intended as constructive criticism so that we can develop our skills. I am very proud of the players; they were getting hammered by a larger team; but maintained their composure and played hard right up to the final whistle. I heard a lot of players supporting one another. We had several players in their very first match, but all worked on their fundamentals of passing, running and tackling. Some very good setting of the ball in rucks once tackled and very few penalties for such an inexperienced team. Nest up Frederick.