St. Patty's Parade Waving , St. Baldrick's Shaving

St. Patrick's Day Parade

St. Patty's Day is coming up, and for once, we have the Saturday, March 15 free for it. The Tipperary Inn will be entering a float and is looking for some of us to help them with it. It would be great exposure for the club. It would be from 8 AM to about 12:30. Let me know if you're interested!

St. Baldrick's Head shaving for cancer research fund raising

Shave your head to fight cancer with the St. Baldrick's event on Sunday March 4 at 4 PM. You register on the website (http://www.stbaldricks.org/), you ask people to sponsor you and then, they shave your head. The last time we did this, in 2006, just two of our players raised around $800.

You can see how much better they looked afterwards:
http://picasaweb.google.com/DARCrugby/031206_baldricks

DARC Wins Nailbiter in Lawton

Lawton, OK
On a cool, mostly clear afternoon, a chippy 14-12 victory over Ft. Sill keeps DARC's TRU Championship hopes alive. The DARC pack dominated the setpieces, but hard tackling by the Gunner's and poor ball retention at the breakdown prevented the Knights from mounting a cohesive attack.

Ft. Sill was on the board first with a quick counter attack when DARC mishandled a kick inside its defensive 22. Poor handling by the Gunner's allowed DARC to respond shortly when Gonzo took a quick ball off the back of a ruck and darted 60 meters through the Gunners' backline for a try between the posts. The converted try gave DARC the 7-5 advantage. DARC threatened again at the stroke of half-time with some excellent sniping and a pinpoint box kick by scrumhalf, Mark Wunsch. After a poor clearing effort, DARC earned a promising lineout position. Again hard tackling by the Army men, kept DARC from the touchdown. A bit too ambitious looking for the pushover, the Knights were unable to capitalize on three consecutive 5 meter scrums, and the whistle blew leaving DARC with the slim halftime margin.

The second half opened with some excellent DARC pressure off the restart, but hard counter-attack running by the home team overloaded the DARC backline, and Ft. Sill was rewarded with a fantastic 60 meter converted try and the 12-5 advantage. DARC hit right back, with more pressure off of the restart earning a lineout just inside the attacking 22. Inside Center, Thomas Morgan took a crash ball, sidestepped his counter part, and beat the Gunners Back row and Fullback to the try zone to level the score. Mike Voss converted his second conversion to restore DARC's deuce lead, 14-12. Shortly after, more DARC pressure gained a 30 meter penalty shot which was narrowly missed to the left. The Gunners responded with some inspired strike running by their back row, forcing DARC into full retreat. The Knights would play defense for the final 15 minutes including an inspired tryline stand of their own. After a booming tryzone clearing kick by Fulback, Phillip Erickson, Ft. Sill countered quickly, again with punishing runs by their forwards, and earned a penalty 20 meters from goal just to the right of the posts. The kick was hooked and DARC was in the clear. A perfectly weighted 22 meter dropout followed by another superb Wunsch tactical bomb, and the Gunners were out of ammunition. Fulltime whistle, and another Victory for DARC, 14-12.

(Tries - Gonzo, Morgan; Conversions Voss (2))
Mayon, J. Erickson, Rooney, Cavazos, Beynon, Lock, Ruiz, Mccure, Wunsch, Cook, Saife (Harvor), Morgan, de Charmoy, Voss, P. Erickson

Saturday's a Rugby Day

DARC travels to Ft. Sill on Saturday for a crucial Cup match vs. Gunners.
2pm kickoff - directions at- http://www.fortsillrugby.com

If interested, carpool leaving from Swick's place at 08:30

Thursday's TRAINING UPDATE

Training is on at the new pitch...

OKC Match Update

OKC v. DARC reschedule

Sat. 29 Mar - 2pm kickoff - Lake Highlands

***MATCH DAY UPDATE***

Saturday's cup match v. OKC has been postponed due to the lovely weather in North Texas. It will be rescheduled on 01 Mar or 29 Mar; details to follow.

At our new place tonight

Parks are open, so we're training at the new field. See Bloo's post below for location. It's right near where we have been training.

PRACTICE MOVED BACK FOR TONIGHT

Plano has closed the park tonight because of the rain. We are training behind Clark tonight.

Practice Moved - slightly

See the circled area? It is about 100 yards northwest of where we have been practicing. Looks like the best place to park is in the parking lot off of Alma, just north of Spring Creek.

BIG game this weekend. We're hosting Oklahoma City.

Frank has asked that we stay off the field and out of the way of the young'uns who will be practicing until 7:30, which suggests 7-7:30 is a great time for some fitness!

Other news: Pretty Pictures!



I've uploaded every rugby picture I can find on my harddrive. Some of them are large, so it may take a bit for your to view them (and I might need to look at putting up versions that are smaller in memory).

Six Nations Rugby at The Londoner

The Londoner is showing the Six Nations Rugby Games live! $20 cover charge. This Saturday looks like an especially good opportunity to watch.

Feb 9th

• Wales vs. Scotland 8 am
• France vs. Ireland 10 am

Feb 10th

• Italy vs. England 8:30 am

Feb 23rd (we're at Fort Sill)

• Wales vs. Italy 9 am
  
• Ireland vs. Scotland 11 am
  
• France vs. England 2 pm

Mar 8th (we're at Fort Worth)

• Ireland vs. Wales 7:15 am
  
• Scotland vs. England 9:15 am

Mar 9th

• France vs. Italy 9 am

Mar 15th (we're On the St. Patty's Day Run, helping the Tipperary Inn with the St. Patty's Day Parade or something along those line, and celebrating St. Patty's Day, also at the Tipperpary Inn)

• Italy vs. Scotland 7 am
  
• England vs. Ireland 9 am
  
• Wales vs. France 11 am

Free Beer* at Practice Thursday!

So, let's get everyone possibly out to practice Thursday night and start accelerating through the rest of the season! Let's earn that free beer*!

(And by "beer" I mean Spaghetti Dinner provided by Peyton. Mmmmmm....spaghetti).

And learn where practice will be moving too next week.

After our third win in a row, now is the time to step up our game. And the fastest way to do that is to have Numbers At Practice. More numbers makes more fun.

DARC Survives Austin Road Trip

Even with a small roster, DARC squeaked out a victory over a very capable and well populated Hord team. I'll let Jason or Bloo give you the full break down of who scored when. After the game, the Hord was gracious enough to extend an offer of an after party at Nasty's to us. Cold beer washed down the warm pizza and we all got a chance to relax before heading back to clean up and embark on a bar crawl of Sixth Street.

With names like Dizzy Rooster, Chuggin' Monkey, and Mooseknuckle, the Austin bar scene never fails to provide plenty of entertainment. If you missed this trip, try your best to catch the next one. The social aspects of rugby are half the fun of playing. It's trips like this that keep the old boys coming back and hook the young guys for life.

Austin tomorrow

We're playing the Huns down in Austin tomorrow. If you haven't made travel arrangements, time is getting short. Swick is leaving today at 3:30 and has some room in his van. Kenny is leaving tomorrow and has some room in his van. Mark "Pajamas" Wunsch is driving. And I'm sure there are others.

If you need to make some plans, call Swick at 214-537-3777 now. He probably has the most complete list of phone numbers and can put you in contact with the right people.