Ready or not, here we come!

The fall rugby season is upon us, and for club side rugby teams like the Albany Knicks that means one thing – Nationals. Everything we do in the off-season, the spring season, the summer Seven’s season, all builds up to the fall season – full 80-minute regular season games pave the road to the NRU playoffs, where only the top 2 northeast teams will earn the right to travel to club National playoffs and fight for the title of best rugby team in the nation. Last year Albany “messed with Texas” and came in 3rd at Division 2 Nationals in Houston, TX. This year, with one of our best competitors moved out of our division, we have our sites set on taking Arizona by storm and claiming the National Championship for ourselves.

Well, so far so good, we’re off to a solid start and definitely on the right track. Our first game was against Hartford – always long, hard, well-fought games which have resulted in us managing to squeeze out each win by only one try. We knew not to underestimate this team, so we came into the game expecting a close battle. Well there’s definitely something different about the Albany team this year, our pack is tighter and stronger, our scrums are solid, our line-outs are solid, our backs are faster, there’s more synergy and flow… All the pieces fell into place and we ended up soundly defeating Hartford by a blow-out score of 42-0. Way to go team!

Reset. Next game was this Saturday against Worcester, and we couldn’t let our big win against Hartford make us cocky, anything can happen in rugby. Well this time our scrums were even better than last game and our line was even faster, we had a short field and our team took full advantage of it at every opportunity. We had scores from multiple girls and our flyhalf made all 7 of her conversion kicks. Worcester managed to squeak in a try near the end, but Albany dominated the game, winning 66-5.

So that’s 2 down, 3 to go – Seacoast, Portland and Burlington. I’ve always had confidence in our team, but this year, I know THIS is the team that’s gonna go all the way, THIS is our season. We’re gonna take the northeast and then we’re gonna take the nation! Ready or not, here we come!

2009 National Playoffs in Houston, TX