Good Morning Adventurers,
How was everyone’s weekend? I hope everyone was able to get out and explore someplace new this weekend as I did. My trip to Chicago was a ton of fun, but boy did my feet hurt after not having played in a few weeks. So rugby is going to be the one thing that I talk about briefly this week. Partially because I didn’t do much with writing this weekend and partially because I got some things that I will be sharing on instagram later this week. So without further ado, let’s talk about:
- Thunderbird Cup
What is the Thunderbird Cup?
Well, that’s the easy part to explain. The Midwest Thunderbirds are a Senior Rugby Club that is meant for players to earn a chance to play at a higher level. The Thunderbird Cup is a tournament where the states in the midwest form select side teams from the players in their state, and compete for recognition and the chance to be observed by the Thunderbirds head coach. That’s realistically all that I need to explain about the tournament, any more and it will take me all morning to explain it.
Anyways, I got the chance to start in both of the games that we played in this weekend. Sadly, we lost our first match playing a very young Iowa team. If you are interested in watching that game, I will provide a link to the video below. It was a close game and we made Iowa really earn that win. The real problem is that for the first twenty minutes of the game, we were making tons of mistakes. We ran into contact alone and without support, others were making terrible/risky passes, and there were way too many dropped balls. This, of course, was accentuated by the fact that Iowa did a really great job on stuffing our offense and preventing us from really moving the ball.
Iowa took the first points of the game with a penalty kick, and it was those three points that really kept them in the lead the entire game. When our team finally started flowing and working together, we were able to run the score up to (24)–(21). It was also right around this point in the game that I was subbed out, and I’m thankful that I was, because my feet were killing me. I had developed three massive blisters that hurt like heck, and they still do. The game ends with us driving the ball down to score, but having it being held up in the end. If we had scored, then we would have won, but that was not to be for us.
For our second game, we played against Illinois team, labeled as CARFU. That game had a much better outcome for us, with us dominating the match for the majority of the game. The team came ready to play and eager for a win. Our lines ran better and we were not getting nearly as many missed/dropped passes as we were in the prior game. Heck, even our scrums were dominating the game, going so far as to drive their scrums back several feet.
In both games, I never really came close to scoring, but I did have one small break away against Iowa. Then against CARFU, I delivered several hard hits that may have concussed one of their players. When I had made that hit, I thought for sure I was going to get a yellow/red card, but the sidling ref said that the player and ran into my tackle low. So, yay, I guess? Either way, I actually now have some great game film that I can go back and review and see what I can improve on. According to my brother, who had driven up to watch the Iowa game, I look like a meatball rolling around out there. Hate to admit it, but on film, he is not wrong. So stamina training and lots of form running will be happening this summer when I am not writing.
Anyways, here is the game against Iowa for those of you who are interested in watching it.
A.G. Flowers 
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