Yesterday in Tucson the Cal Bears rugby team rebounded from an unexpected lopsided loss to BYU by soundly defeating the #9 Arizona Wildcats 85-10.
The Arizona stream went down just moments before kickoff and was down for the entire 1st half. So I can only comment on the 2nd half. But overall it was a major improvement over last week's performance. Bears were more solid in possession, passing was a bit better, and rather than committing 3 players per tackle, the Bears maintained a max of 2 players per tackle. That meant there were fewer lanes for Arizona ballcarriers to exploit. The announcers repeatedly talked about how fast and how physical the Cal tackling was. Kicking was solid, and lineouts were better. Having said that, the Arizona plays were not nearly as creative as BYU's were, so I'm not sure how significant Cal's performance in lineouts is.
In the second match, Cal's #2s defeated Arizona's 2s 54-13.
Also notable, St. Marys defeated UC(la) 58-5.
The Bears play an up and coming side at Grand Canyon University tomorrow. I will provide a link to the stream in a separate post. Game time for tomorrow's match is 12 noon Arizona time.
I will be unable to watch the match due to having a CT Scan followed by a separate doctor's appointment. I'm hopeful someone will be able to watch the match and give a brief summary here. GCU is will coached, and has been building their program very strongly in the last couple of years. They have defeated Arizona State soundly 53-0 and also defeated Utah recently by a score of 50-5. They do have losses to UC(la) and St. Marys. I believe they're ranked around #14 in the nation.
The Arizona stream went down just moments before kickoff and was down for the entire 1st half. So I can only comment on the 2nd half. But overall it was a major improvement over last week's performance. Bears were more solid in possession, passing was a bit better, and rather than committing 3 players per tackle, the Bears maintained a max of 2 players per tackle. That meant there were fewer lanes for Arizona ballcarriers to exploit. The announcers repeatedly talked about how fast and how physical the Cal tackling was. Kicking was solid, and lineouts were better. Having said that, the Arizona plays were not nearly as creative as BYU's were, so I'm not sure how significant Cal's performance in lineouts is.
In the second match, Cal's #2s defeated Arizona's 2s 54-13.
Also notable, St. Marys defeated UC(la) 58-5.
The Bears play an up and coming side at Grand Canyon University tomorrow. I will provide a link to the stream in a separate post. Game time for tomorrow's match is 12 noon Arizona time.
I will be unable to watch the match due to having a CT Scan followed by a separate doctor's appointment. I'm hopeful someone will be able to watch the match and give a brief summary here. GCU is will coached, and has been building their program very strongly in the last couple of years. They have defeated Arizona State soundly 53-0 and also defeated Utah recently by a score of 50-5. They do have losses to UC(la) and St. Marys. I believe they're ranked around #14 in the nation.