Last Saturday, on a wet field in drizzling rain at the University of Connecticut, the Dartmouth Rugby Football Club proved their strength by outing their opponents in a 13-10 win.
The UConn Huskies seemed to be a formidable group to beat, going into the game at 1-0 after beating Boston University in their previous game 16-12 and holding last year's second place title in the Eastern League.
Twelve of last year's Husky players are one this year's team, which was chosen as the pre-season favorite by the New England Collegiate Rugby Union.
In the first half of the game, the Huskies looked as though they had the upper hand, winning most of the lineouts and giving their backs a lot of great balls to run. They also got an early lead in the start of the game by converting a penalty kick after Dartmouth went offside at a maul.
Pat McLaughlin '96 evened the 3-0 score shortly afterwards, however, by kicking a long penalty goal and from that point on, the game was Dartmouth's.
Later in the first half, after his teammates won a ruck, Captain Vuyi Radebe '95 was able to send the ball far down the back line.
After Radebe's throw, two of his teammates, Torbjorn Dimblad '97 and Guy Dixon '95 were able to out-manouever the Husky players, allowing McLaughlin to make a conversion. The team work of the Big Green brought their score in the game to 10, while the Huskies remained at 3.
The second half of the game was a difficult struggle defensively, but McLaughlin was able to score yet again with his second penalty goal in the latter part of the half, putting the team at 13.
After that, the Huskies got more on the ball, both defensively and offensively, and with much effort they were able to raise their score significantly, making the final score 13-10 for Dartmouth.
This Saturday, the Big Green will take on Brown University, a team which has been very successful in the first part of the season. Brown, like Dartmouth, is undefeated at 2-0 in the New England Collegiate Rugby Union.
The men's rugby coach, Wayne Young is very proud of his team, after their recent wins against UConn this past Saturday and Harvard the week before. The Harvard game was very impressive from the Dartmouth standpoint; the Big Green scored 30 points over the mere 13 points that the Crimson men scored.
"We've beaten McGill (non-league), Harvard and UConn, three of the top teams in the East, on the road," said Coach Young. "Now we play Brown in our home opener at Sachen with first place in the league at stake. If we play as well as we did at UConn, we will be tough to beat."
The teams will battle for the 3-0 standing at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday.
