A large crowd was on hand for the first home match of the season when Fort Collins Youth Rugby Boys (FCYR) took on the North Side Vikings (NS) in a league match. The match saw some hard running and hitting on both sides but a good tactical rucking and kicking game played out into Fort Collins hands for the victory and now puts them at 2-0 in league play.
Fort Collins kicked off to open the match and immediately kept up an attach in North Sides end of the pitch and after several minutes of heavy pressure on NS it forced a penalty and a penalty kick at goal for FCYR. Kick went wide but NS attempted to attack from their own five and with pressure put on by FCYR causing a turnover, Martin Bautista was able to break into the try zone to give FCYR a 5-0 lead. North Side came back in the next few minutes with the outside center breaking several tackles and getting to the outside to score for NS and tie the match at 5-5. Play went back and forth until with around six minutes to go and FCYR pressing the attack, 8-man Mitch Yake picked and took the ball weak breaking several tackles and dragging a few others to score the try and put FCYR back out in the lead 10-5. The first half was about to end when once again FCYR was awarded a penalty and Ethan Middleton converted the penalty kick to put FCYR up at half 13-5.
Second half saw Fort Collins use both a rucking attack by the forwards along with tactical kicking by the backs to keep North Side on their heels and deep in their own territory. At the seven minute mark and FCYR attacking David Ramirez crashed through the NS defense and with Ethan’s conversion FCYR was up 20-5. Fort Collins kept up the attack keeping North Side in their own territory and forcing NS to commit many penalties and with about ten minutes to go in the match Justin Schaffer sliced through NS for the score and Ethan made the conversion to close out the scoring at 27-5.
Kudo’s goes out to the team for playing Fort Collins rugby and sticking with the game plan and also to Justin Schaffer who is the captain of the team and was the man of the match. Also kudo’s to the B-side that played in the third half and held their own against the starters from North Side, saw some great play by all of them and will be looking at some of them moving up to A-side in the near future if they keep this up.
