Today Cal's men rugby opened up conference play facing the Sun Devils. The weather was not ideal - 10 minutes before opening kickoff we had a real strong rain, although at kickoff there were just a few stray drops. But it was cold, and although the sun almost came out later in the game, instead a light shower or two blew through. The wind at least was not as bad as last week.

The ASU squad looked much smaller than the Bears, and this was born out in play. We consistently pushed them back in the scrums, and more often than not, stole or disrupted their lineouts. But we suffered from several bad passes and catches, IMO due in part to the cold wet weather. But at the half we were up 46-0, and at game's end we had over 100 points again. The Sun Devils never had possession of the ball in our territory in the first half, and only twice in the 2nd half. The second time they opted for a penalty kick attempt, but missed it (in the 7 games so far this season, the only points scored against us were a pair of penalty kicks, one by UCLA and one by Cal Maritime). Things got a little chippy late in the 2nd half, and one of our guys got a yellow card, but even though we were down a man for several minutes, our play wasn't affected at all.

There were a couple of great individual efforts by the Bears in this contest, the most spectacular by our #11, who I think is Marcus Shankland. He got the ball around our own 22 meter line on the north side of the field, then tore off to the southside, and then threaded his way past all the defenders to score the try - he must have run over 120 meters on that one play.

In the 2nd half Sam Cusano, one of our best players, was tackled hard and took a few moments to get up. He walked off on his own power, so I hope he'll be OK.

Next week the competition ramps up a bit when we face Cal Poly, and then it gets REALLY tough on Feb, 23 when British Columbia comes to town.

One of our

Chalcid, somehow I missed this post and posted a rugby related post on Monday. Hope you et al. will forgive my oversight.

My personal thoughts are that while the competition hasn't been the best, the weather conditions have been a positive for the Bears, as the home and home with UBC could very well be cold, and very wet in both stadiums this year. Taking offloads/passing in wet weather can be problematic. Rugby balls have changed over the years. We still had laces when I played. Then they got very smooth minus laces (those balls were really slippery), and now there is some texture to the ball (again minus laces). I would hope that the Bears are working really hard on ball distribution because knock ons kill offensive momentum. Cal's defense appears to be very solid. But UBC will be large, experienced, and more physical than what the Bears have faced thus far.

Any word on Cusano or Tavenner's status, as far as you know?

No worries. And no word on either injured player (but such updates are seldom published). I just hope they can sit out the Cal Poly match and be in primo shape for UBC.

UBC is the rugby equivalent of playing BYU (if BYU had a great team every year), right? As in, their guys are 5 years older than our guys.

To an extent you are right, BearSD. They do have older players, and the rules about Canadian collegiate participation are different than what we adhere to.