Festival of Northern Rugby

After a brief hiatus Portland is back in action tomorrow with their first home fixture in quite some time. But what a fixture it is, with two teams showing up to have a tilt at your home-town heroes.

Firstly we have the newly formed Monadnock RFC, aka Keene State Alumni, who have burst on to the D3 scene this year and who are looking to build on some of their strong performances against Bull Moose and erm...nobody else. I'm sure you're all very interested in that strange name they've chosen for themselves, which presumably they've taken from Mount Monadnock which is wicked close by to Keene, NH. What's even more interesting than that is the fact that the term "monadnock" has been adopted by American geologists as an alternate term for "inselberg" which describes "an isolated hill, knob, ridge or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gentle sloping or virtually level surrounding plain".

So lets hope they're able to rise abruptly to the occasion and put on a good show without looking like isolated knobs.

Oh snap!

As if that doesn't all sound like too much fun, the second act brings us even more rugby from the wild frontier, when the Central Maine Stripers (and perhaps even a few Bull Moosers) will be strutting their stuff. The Stripers themselves are, of course, named after the Three-Striped Night Monkey (Aotus Trivirgatus), one of several species of Northern Owl Monkey. Known for their large eyes and striking face markings they feed mainly of fruit, nuts, leaves insects and small invertebrates.

No, that's what the monkeys eat, silly.

After that, there's even talk of a third act, in which the Knobs and the Monkeys duke it out for your viewing pleasure. All that and sunny too!

So all you Old Boys should bring your boots and your lawn chair, so after you've phoned-in your requisite 40 minutes of rugby you can put your feet up and tell us how it was done in your day. I can't wait!

Oh yeah, it all kicks-off at the Fairgrounds at 1pm.

Turbulent River

An ill tempered matched ended with an uncharacteristically good-natured result when Portland and Charles River met up this past weekend in Franklin Park.

Despite the sunshine, overnight rains had turned the normally dusty Franklin Park pitch in to a bit of a quagmire, so it was never going to be ideal conditions for running rugby, but short tempers and ahem..."challenging" refereeing prevented the game from ever really getting out of second gear.

The game started with Charles River definitely coming out the sharper of the two sides. Like an '82 Rothschild Portland never travels well, and the joys of driving through some of Boston's most scenic neighborhoods had clearly preoccupied the visitors. Charles River's big and physical pack took advantage of Portland's sluggishness, repeatedly crashing ball off the side of the rucks and all in all making themselves quite a handful. Soon enough this pressure told as Portland failed to contain the fringe attack.

After the Portland captain picked up a yellow card for erm...an obstruction of justice, Charles River quickly took advantage of the overload up front and scored again. Now 12 points adrift, Portland finally began to wake up and offer up some kind of resistance. Play staggered in both directions, with poor handling preventing either side from gathering much momentum. Tries were traded by each side, with Hannes Bouwer opening the scoring for Portland. Despite the signs of life however, Portland were 19-5 adrift at the half.

The second half offered much of the same stop-start rugby as before, with most plays dissolving into an ill-tempered ruck, complete with much shoving and name calling on both sides. Again it was River though who kept their focus, opening the second half scoring with a well taken chance off turnover ball.

With the scoreline now at 24-5, and Portland giving every appearance that they would rather keep fighting than start scoring, it seemed as though the game was quickly heading down the tubes. However, as gravity and a late yellow card began to take its hold on the Charles River pack, Portland were able to exert some pressure of their own and begin to stretch out the opposition defense. First Fred Hayman and then Bubba Nadeau were able to dance down the wing and score, with Fred having the presence of mind to give our motley assortment of kickers a helping hand by touching down under the posts. Scotty duly rewarded his efforts, and after both scores it was now 24-17. Game on.

With seconds on the clock Portland spun the ball wide once more, only to see Fred hauled down by his collar inches short of the line. Had he been allowed to cross the line unmolested the resultant conversion angle would have probably proven too much for any of part-time kickers. However, thanks to that ill-timed shirt grab, the ensuing penalty try ensured a kick under the posts that Matt Winch was able to slot over as though he had ice in his veins (instead of piss and vinegar).

Full time and a score of 24-all. Probably the only result that, given the nature in which the game was played, could ensure that neither side went home with a serious pole up its arse. All's well that ends well, and both sides were able to congratulate themselves for not losing. Fred Hayman secured MOTM honors for the game, as he continues his return from injury and begins to fire on all cylinders.

The B-side returned to their winning ways in more unequivocal fashion, running out 31-0 winners in a more good natured encounter. Despite a lot of familiar faces from the A-side, it was probably the cameo appearances of Spyder and Joey D that stood out the most, as they proved themselves masters of the 20-minutes-a-side format. Good to see them out, now if they could just add another 40 minutes to their repertoire then we might be on to something. MOTM honors however went to someone with 120 minutes under his belt who was still able to bust out a 60 meter breakaway try, not to mention a sterling all round performance – Ben Gurney. Ah, to be young again.

Portland are resting this weekend, and return with a home fixture on 5/12 against Monadnock / Keene State Alumni / Stripers.

(brief) Amoskeag Match Report

Out of nowhere comes a day finally fit to be called Spring-like, and out of the wilderness comes a Portland side short on playing time but long on enthusiasm. Since their fitful start against Old Gold, Portland has had plenty of time to get down on themselves, but instead they came out and played against Amoskeag this past weekend with an optimism and that had been absent of late. Despite the eventual loss, the lead changed hands several times, with Portland crossing the Amoskeag line on four occasions. Had it not been for Evan’s erm..."bad day at the office" with the place kicks the scoreline might have been even closer.

The game was played at a brisk pace throughout, with Amoskeag’s open, running style of rugby contrasted with Portland’s more conventional set-piece oriented game.

Anyway, I could go on and on about this, but since it's already a week overdue, I'll keep it to just the facts. Scorers were, me, Derrik, Byron and somebody else. Portland played most of the second half a man down due to an unfortunate communications error with the ref.

The B's winning streak was finally broken, going down 17-14. Bubba scored and somebody else there also. Bubba secured MOTM honors for his efforts.

A good day out, and more glass-half-full kind of stuff. Still a poor substitute for winning.

Portland travel to Charles River tomorrow for another crack at it. Be at the Park & Ride at 9:30am if you're interested in taking part.

Amoskeag On Deck

This weekend sees us travelling to our neighbors in New Hampshire, Amoskeag. The pitch location has been confirmed as their Northeast Athletic Club/Pembroke site, directions to which can be found below. They would appear to point to a location somewhere about here, but don't take my word for it. Better to meet up and the Park & Ride across from Ballys at 9:45 tomorrow, so we can all get lost together.

Those directions:
Take 95 South to 101 West to 93 North...

Home Pitch (Northeast Athletic Club):

I-93 (North) to exit 13. South on Rte. 3 for 5 miles. Turn left onto Academy Rd. (Immediately before Pembroke Academy/Pembroke School District sign). 1 mile to the end of Academy Rd. Turn right onto Buck St., the field is on the left. (Alcohol and Dogs are not Permitted)

Weather forces the faithful inside

Due to the inclement weather (pictured), training for tonight, Tuesday the 17th has been re-routed from the Fairgrounds to Gorham Sports Center, which is an indoor facility located in, believe it or not, Gorham.

To give you time to go home and feed the cat before heading out there, we've pushed the start time back to 7pm, so be ready to go by then. For directions, click on this link.

College Cup shelved...for now

Curse you mother nature! Oh, what cruel torment!

Just when the grass was coming into view again, along comes another 4" of freshies to squash any hopes of pulling off the Maine College Cup this weekend.

The logistical challenges of staging this tornament are hard enough on a dry day, so even those of us in deepest denial have to concede that there's just no (safe) way to make this happen.

Nevertheless, there are a couple of open slots on our calendar in early May, and efforts are underway to try and postopone the whole shebang until then, by which time we hope it will have stopped snowing. So all you stoodents better re-sort your priorities and prepare to plough your finals in favor of the Maine Cup.

I'll tell you, when I was a lad it snowed all the time, and it was up hill both ways, and we couldn't afford boots, and...and...