DARC Wins In Austin, Zee has Red Shoes

On a windy but sunny day in Austin, DARC won handily over the Huns D3 side: 8 tries, 1 kick = 42 to Hun's 12. The trys were dotted down by Mark Wunsch (4), Drew McCure (2) and Philip Erickson (1), Phillipe Wauters (1) but it was really a great team effort. Cagey veteran (and normally a lock or flank), Cookie played Fly Half, for I think the first time ever. He used the forwards as a hammer against the Huns. The recycling of rucks and mauls allowed the backs (and the speedy scrum half) to take advantage when the defense wasn't able to reorganize quickly enough. Biggie Whitacre gave us the only conversion kick in the second half.

A lot of things we worked on in practice worked here. The biggest factor was simply moving the ball forward all the time. As Coach Swick said in practice, if you do that, calls will go your way - and they did. There were a lot of whistles in this game, and the ref's arm could have easily been pointing the other way. The heavy crosswinds pretty much negated much kicking from either side, and we got lucky a few times with kicks that could otherwise have gone very badly for us.

But more than anything, I think it was the team work here. The scrummies worked excellently in set pieces. Our backs had some excellent attacks with supported runs. Same with the forwards in the loose - there were some "Champagne Rugby" moments - or rather "sparks" - but they were there.

You might recognize these shoes:

Zee in San Diego.