Utah Valley Men’s Rugby Starts Playoffs Strong

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Mar
16

The Utah Valley Men’s Rugby team started their quest for a national title Tuesday with a comprehensive 60-5 victory over Dixie State College in a Utah rugby union playoff qualifier.

UVU showed they were well prepared for the elimination game, coming out strongly from the kickoff and scored their opening try in the 4th minute. The Wolverines had another 3 tries in the first 15 minutes of the match, fly half Molo Tuakimoana and flanker Robert “RJ” Jenny featuring prominently in all of the first quarter tries.

Head coach Sam George made the most of an experienced bench and started ringing the changes shortly after the team scored their fourth try. The looming back-to-back playoff games in Boise this weekend obviously playing on his mind as he opted to rest key players early on and give some of the lesser experienced players a chance to make an impression before the business end of the season begins.

But with the slew of changes also came a change of tempo and Dixie began to string together phases and build some momentum. Each advance down the field was ultimately met by Utah Valley’s loose forwards, who showed great speed to the breakdown all day and managed to force a multitude of turnovers at the rucks and creating plenty of opportunities to play with the ball in hand.

UVU managed to withstand the pressure applied by Dixie and were able to capitalize one last time before the half, a short pass from center Josh Pukahi found lock Trevor Matthews running a great angle and slicing through the defense to score under the posts. The score at halftime had UVU ahead, 33-0.

The break did little to slow down the Wolverine side, reserve prop Tim Katoa crashing over from 5m out within 3 minutes of the resumption of play. Another quick strike 4 minutes later saw flanker Matt Lefrandt run through untouched from a well taken quick tap by Molo Tuakimoana.

Centre Johnny Schumacher pounced on a misplaced pass shortly after and was able to return the interception for a try under the uprights. His ensuing conversion pushed the score out to 50-0. Fatigue began to set in for the Wolverine squad and Dixie was quick to take advantage of the UV side’s ill-discipline. Not retreating the required 10 metres on numerous penalties saw Dixie marched 40m towards the UVU line before finally converting their continued pressure by swinging the ball wide and scoring a well worked try.

The Dixie score seemed to spark the UVU team to life and resulted in them being able to string together their best movements of the match. A clean lineout take provided a solid platform and the UV backline swept from right to left across the field and scored an impressive team try, each member of the backline handling the ball in the movement.

The UV team slowed drastically from that point, one more try to replacement hooker Viliami Fonohema completing the scoring for UV with twelve minutes left to play in the game.

Despite the Dixie try in the second half, head coach Sam George was happy with the improved tackling effort in the second half and was satisfied with the overall performance for the day. “Obviously it’s hard not to have your mind on the upcoming games, seeing as how close they are. But the boys came out and took care of business today. It was good to get some of the reserve guys a run as well, they are going to be really important to the team if we want to make any kind of run in the playoffs.”

The Utah Valley side will now take on the Boise State team in the semi- finals of the Utah Rugby Union Playoffs this Friday in Boise. Idaho State will square off against defending champions Snow College in the second of Friday’s matches. The winners of their respective matches will meet at 12pm on Saturday play for the Utah Rugby Union Championship and the union’s playoff spot in the upcoming Pacific Coast Playoffs.