Touch & Pass / 7's Practice Begins Touch & Pass / 7's Practice will be held at  Buchanan High School every Tuesday & Thursday Night at 6:30pm.  All are welcome.    Fresno qualifies for playoffs As it stands right now, Fresno RFC is the NorCal #2 seed in the 2009 Pacific Coast Playoffs. This year, Pacific Coast is being held in Phoenix (Glendale to be exact), April 25-26.     Fresno 79 - Baracus 5    Evaluator: Mike Malone Fresno scored in the first 8 minutes and then it was on. Half time was 41-0. The lone try for Baracus was from their 8 man who picked up from a ruck and continued forward. It was a nice 35 meter break. The weather was outstanding. John Pohlman was a awesome host. Arriving at 11:00 PM on Thursday, he picked me up and had food ready to eat. The next day we made our way up the scenic highway on the outside of the bay going by Stanford and through East Palo Alto. I had a chance to AR some of the women’s matches at Stanford on Friday before my match on Saturday. I truly valued my time being able to see the quality of the D-1 women in Nor Cal. And for all who knew of Q-Tip, that is the stuffed dog my daughter gave me before I left to keep me company. She was very pleased for all of the pictures I took with him. I am up for the Dad of the Year Award!!! Many thanks to: John Pohlman Joe Leisek Jim Crenshaw Mike Malone Greg Lundell Bruce Carter Roberto Santiago Fresno and Baracus for the way they played the game, like gentlemen.       Fresno 26 - East Palo Alto 36    Referee: Joe Androvich (no match report was written by the referee.)    Fresno 75 - Arroyo Grande 12    Referee: John Coppinger Quality rugby abounded in Arroyo Grande at the Talley Farm Fields last Saturday.   Fresno bussed in 2-and-a-half sides to take on Arroyo Grande in a NCRFU MD2 league match, while San Diego State brought three sides to challenge Cal Poly SLO, with the "A" match being the SCRFU collegiate championship match.   In the "A" match, Fresno scored early and often running in 12 tries by taking the ball wide in a 75-12 win. The half time score was 42-0.    Fresno 41 - Santa Rosa 0    Referee: John Coppinger On Santa Rosa's treasure of a pitch, For Pete's Sake, a faster, fitter, and better organized Fresno side ran by a game Santa Rosa selection. Santa Rosa threatened to score any number of times but were denied by Fresno defense and turnovers. This match was a pleasure to referee with both sides accepting direction from the referee and the match is remarkable because there was not a single penalty awarded for foul play.      Fresno 55 - Seahawks 0    Referee: Rich Anderson A leisurely drive from Oakland to Fresno was interrupted by a failed alternator in Chowchilla. A few phone calls, a tow to a Fresno garage, and a cab ride to the pitch had me showing up just a little before kick-off. After a 15 minute delay, Fresno went to work early and often. San Jose was able to contest Fresno with their forwards, but had no answer for Fresno's wide backs. Once Fresno figured this out, their strategy of swinging the ball wide proved to be very efficient. They scored 4 tries in each half and kept the Seahawks scoreless.      Fresno 74 - SF/Golden Gate 7    Referee: Phil Akroyd Fresno – 12 tries, 7 conv SFGG – 1 try, 1 conv This was a pretty one sided game all the way with not much to report on. Fresno scored early and often by utilizing their best players at 10, 12, 13 and fifteen by cutting through the many holes in the SFGG backline. San Francisco became frustrated and petulant as they were clearly second best and the game was over before half-time. Fresno added 50 points in the second half and enjoyed the wonderful pitch and warm spring weather to play some fast, open rugby. The Fresno fly-half (Vaughan Holdt?) was outstanding and appeared to see lines even before they emerged, enabling him to feed his capable back line. San Francisco on the other hand, appeared slower to the break down and lost the contest at nearly every ruck.         Diablo Gaels 14 - Fresno 13   Referee: Paul Bretz (no match report was written by the referee.)    Fresno 31 - Baracus 19   Referee: Jim Crenshaw (no match report was written by the referee.)    Palo Alto 29 - Fresno 14   Referee: Preston Gordon Evaluator: Mike Malone This was a very good and pretty fast game. There were several knock-ons and other technical errors over these 80 minutes, but for the most part, it was good counter- attacking, hard hitting, and very fairly contested rugby. Everybody seemed to enjoy the match - I certainly did. The weather was great, and the pitch had a bit more grass on it than I remember last spring. Beware the sprinkler holes though! We got going right at 1300, and throughout the first half each side attempted to put their stamp on the game. The lead changed a couple of times, and we ended up at 12-14 to the visitors at the break. With a brace of tries to each side, EPA's missed conversion was the only difference. In the second half EPA was able to apply a lot more pressure in the scrums, stealing a couple of feeds against the head while disrupting much of Fresno's ball. EPA seemed to get stronger as they finished the match, whereas their opponents seemed to fade a bit - the second half scoreline would appear to support this: EPA got 3 tries, converting one, against nothing for Fresno. Thanks to both sides for maintaining discipline and also for using their ears during the match! Everybody understood very quickly that "ruck" meant no hands on the ball, and as a result, the tempo of the game was kept pretty high.      Fresno over Arroyo Grande - 90-0 This weekend Fresno opened league play against Arroyo Grande.  Although the final score was lopsided A.G. never quit, and continued to put the pressure on for the entire game.   After being stuck in our own 22 for about five minutes Fresno absorbed early pressure and then unleashed the back line to score 14 unanswered tries over the next 75 minutes.  Territorially the match was played between the half line and AG's goal line with more than half the tries scored from moves that started just inside Fresno's half.  There were numerous 50+/- meter scores by Fresno's back line. Tries: Louis Maxwell  3 tries Adam Wells      2 tries Jon Hanson       2 tries Mike Eckert     2 tries Mark Miranda  1 try Ryan Dorrance 1 try Andrew Clark  1 try Jordan Brenner 1 try Carl Chambers 1 try   Kicking duties:  Roger Skinner 5/7 Adam Wells  4/6 Mike Eckert 1/2   Final Score was in Fresno's favor 90-0.     Season Opener Jan 24th Regular season is almost upon us, come out and run or show your support at our first home game.  Our home games will be held at The Fresno Sports Complex and is located at Jensen and West.       Over/Under Game December 6 Over 30/Under 30 game will be held December 6 at Fresno Regional Sports Complex.  The Old Boys look to continue their domination of the unders, but there is a "youth" movement taking place with lots of new players in the mix.  As usual, kickoff will be at 1:00 PM. The Sports Complex is located at Jensen and West.  The pregame social will be at Groggs, 7:00 Friday night.  Groggs is on the northeast corner of Willow and Nees.     Fresno State Recruiting an Overwhelming Success Speech from Pat Hill seems to be what was needed to create a buzz about rugby at Fresno State.   Thanks to   the organization of Barry Foley and Lenny "Shrek" Valerio, there is now a viable rugby club on campus at Fresno State.   60 plus turned up to learn more about the game that we love, and most of them have been out to training.   Lets   get out and support these guys, they are the future of this club!     Training in Full Swing We are now into our 2008-2009 season.   Numbers at training have been good, but there are still faces that we would like to see out at practice.   We are training Tuesday and Thursday nights at 7:00 PM, Bicentennial Park in Clovis.      Fresno wins Plate at Tri Tip 7s With a mixture of youth and experience, Fresno went 3-1 and won the Plate division at SLO Tri Tip 7s on Saturday.   Our first game was against Old Aztecs from San Diego.   Unorganized defense and a couple calls that didn't go our way saw us spot the opponent a   halftime lead.   In true Fresno fashion we stormed back in the second half, but the lead was too much to overcome and we lost our opening game 14-12. We faced Santa Monica in   our second game and we played to a 0-0 halftime draw.   In the second half, both teams got more comfortable in their offensive plans and   tries were abundant.     In the end, we   touched down one more time than them and we won 24-19. The plate semi-final pitted us against the host team from SLO.   We controlled the game with aggressive defense and won 20-14. The plate final was all Fresno.   Alumni In Dire Straights (AIDS, an alumni team from Cal Poly) was the opponent and we controlled the entire game.   We played good defense and took advantage of opportunities when presented.   We won in convincing fashion 27-0.  Thank you to all who made the trip:   Tod, JoJo, Shamoon, Dill, Walt, Travis Jury, John Hansen, CJ Chalmers, Mark, Collins, Herb and Nizzle.   Special recognition to Collin Cook for the great coaching and drink mixing!  Also, many thanks to the Old Boys Association for paying the entry fee of the tournament!     U-19 Team We have a   field, we have coaches who are interested, we have at least one team signed up for a home-and-away series in the fall.   We now need PLAYERS. We have had several prospective players from Hanford, Clovis. Sanger, Fresno City and Fresno State joining this summer for touch practice, but we need more. We are looking for contacts for us to speak to local High School and Junior College's to pitch why they should come join the rugby world.   If interested or you have contacts, please email us.   This venture, which holds great promise for the Fresno Metro area, will not be easy any help given will be appreciated.     If anyone is interested in playing for the U-19 team or men's club, or is interested in helping, please email fresnorugby@hotmail.com.     Join the Fresno Rugby Yahoo! Groups page Keep up with all the goings on with the club at our group page.  Eventually, this will be the main medium of communication for the club, so please join today.  The links is: http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/fresnorfc/     New and Old Players are Welcome No matter what your playing experience may be, come out and give it a try. We welcome new players to join the men's club team or the U-19 side. Come on out to a practice. If you have any questions contact herb.breen@gmail.com or fresnorugby@hotmail.com.