Spring Match Reports
Citadel v Charleston Men D3 24 - 17 Win, Citadel v Charleston Men DII 81 - 5 loss (Outlaws DII is one of the top 16 teams in men's Div II nationally)
Match Report excerpt provided by Coach Dave Hawkins of the Charleston Outlaws
Worldwide Readers and Fans, Players as well,
Yesterday was another typical Charleston winters day, 60 degrees and sunny, though I felt chilly what with the slight wind blowing. The Campus Field
at the Citadel is probably one of the nicer settings we play at and it was here where we played our final warm up games against the Citadel
Cadets.
The first game started at 11:00 AM. It was the Div 3 team who were first up. Quite a few of the guys had never played together before and we had
quite a few new faces so it was of great interest to us. It started off fairly even though I must say I thought we looked a little more composed when we had the ball. The Citadel brought a great deal of youth and enthusiasm and put us under pressure from the beginning but it was not until the 11th minute that we scored, George went through the middle and touched down, we failed with the conversion. 17 minutes in and they intercepted and ran in for an easy try which they converted. (5 to 7). The game see sawed back and fore and Joel made a break, passed to Peter who sprinted in for a nice try. (12 to 7). At 26 minutes, from out wide, they ran in untouched. (12 to 14). At 34 mins. we took a quick tap from a penalty and George ran it in. (17 to 19). Just before the half they scored a controversial try in the corner which left the half score at 19 to 17 in their favour.
Unfortunately I only watched a portion of the 2nd half but I saw us win phase after phase only for the Citadel defense to stop us from scoring. The
Citadel commit a lot of guys around the breakdown and to run through it is practically impossible if just for sheer numbers. Our failure was in trying to.
The pods have to line up on the flyhalf and let him distribute it, either wide or for the inside hammer. The bottom line is the Citadel scored and we lost by one try. We will get better, we have the people and we will be more together the next game, all in all a good performance by all but we must all have an understanding of what it is we do in these situations.
Now for the Div 2 game. To say the Citadel were overpowered would just about sum it up, I will say this, when the score goes against you, like it did
for the Citadel, it is all to easy to quit but those guys kept coming in and playing as hard as they could so they have a great deal of respect from me. I am not going into the final score but it was a lot to 5. Now, in regards as to is it worth it the answer is yes. It is an opportunity for us to put into practice
that which we do at practice every week and see if it works or we need tweaking. By now everyone knows our game is wide open, it is for runners, why try blunt force when you can go around it? Not that blunt force isn’t needed but there is a time to use it. Yesterday was not one of those days. Next week will be. Nine of our tries were scored out wide, which speaks for itself.
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