GRR: Columns
I have been fortunate to work on a few webcasts recently as a play-by-play or color commentator (actually, I did 16 games in the space of ten days but who’s counting?), and I have some opinions that have sprung up from those experiences.
A few thoughts about the USA’s performance in Dubai:
Did you notice that Mike Friday started Kevin Swiryn and Will Holder in the 3rd/4th game against New Zealand?
After using only two subs in the last-second loss to England in the semifinals, Friday Nate Augspurger, Will Holder, Kevin Swiryn, and Carlin Isles. He didn’t use Maka Unufe and Madison Hughes at all.
As college rugby teams do a better job of attracting more athletic players to the game, creating varsity and quasi-varsity programs, and breaking away from the old club model, it’s worth noting when an old-school club team does well.
In making AIC the #1 DI men’s college team in the fall I had to make a few assumptions, because AIC didn’t play everyone in the country; I had to make assumptions based on the style of play, and the athleticism, and the type of players other teams have.
The ongoing lamentation in men’s DI college rugby is the fact that the competitions are all split up.
We’ve got DIA, DIAA, Varsity Cup, and the ACRC Bowls. And we can’t say, definitively, which group is better