Friday, March 28, 2008

Radio silence (eom)

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Sharp

Shapr has managed to offend only half a dozen women and asians.

--

-Matt Cochran

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Living the dream!

3 beers down and 2 more. Hours of. Driving

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Getting Ready

I'm still sore from Murray's brutal practice last night; but I just had a cup of coffee, packed my kit, and zipped over to the liquor store for provisions for the bus trip up.

I also just got an e-mail from erstwhile West Potomac player Neil Dill, I guess we can expect to see him while we're in NYC. If he refs one of our games we can expect a few favorable calls.

Per Cartman's request radio silence on the blog will be enforced once we board the bus.

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Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Ride to NYC for this weekend's tournament

Gentlemen,


I reserved a "seven" passenger mini-van for the ride from DC to NYC and return. Tentative departure time is 1600 (4 p.m.) on 28 Mar 08 (Friday).

So far MJ and Pat are in. Three more can fit comfortably. If interested let me know. If mode of travel is your only excuse for not going then "problem solved".

Costs split equally:

Rental- $170
Gas- TBD
Parking- TBD
Driver- free


Grant

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NYC Tournament Info

Here is the info that you need for this weekend. Our first match is at 9:30, so make plans to get to the pitch by 8:30 at the latest. Make sure that someone going has your cellphone number and that you have Sideshow, MJ, or Bible's.

CONFIRMED PLAYERS:

Below are the folks that have formally confirmed that they are in for this weekend. We have gotten verbal commitments from a couple guys that need to email Sideshow to confirm that they are still in (Jimmy, Jesse, Firedog, et al).

  1. Sunshine
  2. Koz
  3. Reuben
  4. KJ
  5. The Beard
  6. Grant
  7. Ben
  8. Pat
  9. MJ
  10. Bible
  11. Sharp
  12. Cochran
  13. Peter
  14. Sideshow
  15. Ron
  16. Dain

MATCH LOCATION/INFO:

The Tournament is on Randalls Island, which is an island in the East River, between Manhattan and Queens, directly beneath the Triborough Bridge, most are played on Field 13-14 which is on the northeast corner of the island right beneath a train trestle that runs next to the Triborough Bridge.

www.villagelions.org/tournament/directions.php

DRINK-UP LOCATION/INFO:

Lansdowne Road
599 10th Ave
New York, NY 10036
(212) 239-8020
www.lansdowneroadnyc.com

HOSTEL LOCATION/INFO:

Everyone staying at the hostel needs to have $40 cash for each night they are staying.

Central Park Hostel

19 West 103rd Street
near Central Park West
New York, NY 10025
tel: (212) 678-0491
fax: (212) 678-0453
info@centralparkhostel.com

Directions for Subway, Trains, and Planes:
http://www.centralparkhostel.com/location.html

Driving directions from DC


PLACES NEAR THE HOSTEL TO FIND PABST PRODUCTS:

Chris (our PBR) checked with his counterpart up in NYC to get us the run down of bars that serve drinkable beer. The Ding Dong Lounge is only 5 blocks from the hostel – if you think that we are not going to meet up there at some point, you are very much mistaken.

Ding Dong Lounge
929 Columbus
PBR family of products (including the pounders).

Dinosaur BBQ
2293 12th Avenue
PBR, Schaefer, Schlitz and Lonestar

Lions Head Tavern
995 Amsterdam Ave
PBR 12 ounce cans

Havana Central
2909 Broadway
PBR draft

Radio Perfecto
1187 Amsterdam Ave
PBR 12 ounce cans

O’Connell’s
2794 Broadway
McSorley’s Ale draft

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West Potomac Raises Over $1700 for MACB

I need to start by apologizing for taking so long to get this information posted. Mia culpas out of the way, I am happy to say that our 2008 Spring Thaw fund raiser was a wild success. When all was said and done, we crushed our $1000 fund raising goal and were able to send Men Against Breast Cancer (MABC) over $1700 in donations!

The first portion of this support came through the sale of pink and blue rugby socks to the participating clubs. The socks were donated by Steamroller Rugby Supply and we managed to sell out our entire supply to the 80-plus ruggers in attendance. The mixed colors represent the pink and blue in the MABC logo – a symbol of men and women working together to fight the disease. The Marines added their own spin by combining the pink socks with their traditional green and quite a few pictures of the day made it into the Washington Post's story about the Quantico Rugby Club.

After the match, we extended the fund raising to the drink up. Thanks to the folks at Hamilton's and PBR, we ran a special offering anyone who made a five dollar donation $1 PBR cans throughout the evening. We were very happy to see fans, friends, family, and members of other rugby teams around the area show up and lend their support.

Finally, a special thanks to the individuals that wrote us checks or slipped us extra cash that we were able to add to the grand total. Your generosity did not go unnoticed!

Thanks to everyone who donated, participated, and supported this event. We have definitely raised the bar for next year's Thaw and we hope to use our experience with this event to develop a turn-key solution for other rugby clubs and unions that would like to add a charitable component to their next tournament.

You can check out some swell pictures that Jen Bentley took of the West Pot matches here.

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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

WestPot Tops James River, 37 -20

It was a tale of two halves for West Potomac when the hosted James River on 3/22. The Men in Red went into halftime behind 13-8 but some strategy and attitude adjustments during the intermission — plus a couple lucky bounces — seemed to do the trick and the good guys put down five tries in the second frame. James River only had fifteen due to the holiday, but a few of their guys offered to run a second match and we got in a good mixed-sides B game despite having to go to uncontested scrums due to personnel/inexperience.

Even though our centers were leading candidates for the Red Jacket, they were not at the drink up and the honor went to MJ who had a nice little try off a line-out drive (and was also celebrating his birthday). The Red Pants went to Jason who showed the other rookies how it's done and put down a couple tries in the second game.

The drink up was a little odd. Only a couple guys from James River were able to make it out, so we assumed that it was just going to be WestPot players, friends, and family. Well, that would have been the case if we were not sharing the bar with a horde of Wisconsin basketball fans (go badgers!?), participants in the Capitol Hill Bunnyhop, and random female ruggers masquerading as kickball players. The result was a very lively drink up with plenty of wine (read: PBR, flip cup challenges), women (see: above), and song (is "Jesus Can't Play Rugby" a good idea on a day bookended by Good Friday and Easter?). To make things even more interesting, they had us downstairs by the main entrance so we were able to put on a show for coming/going from Hamilton's.

Scoring:
Tries: Andy (2), Sunshine, Rueben, MJ, Bible
Conversions: Bible 2/6
Penalties: Bible 1/1


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Usually a bald hooker is that LAST thing a sick kid needs...

Dain's wife, Jen, asked that we get this info out to the team (and beyond). Please help out by making a donation and/or passing the link around to friends and family:

Dain is participating in St. Baldrick's at the tournament in NYC to raise money for children's cancer research. He'll be getting his head shaved on the field at 3pm. People can donate online to sponsor him and this event. There are several people from other teams doing this as well.

Click below to support Dain, and show the West Pot spirit of charity. I promise to take pictures and share with all!

http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/shavee_info.html?ParticipantKey=2008-48159


Thanks for considering!

Cheers,

Jen

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Quantico Hooligans


Check out this article on the Quantico MCB rugby club, if you look at the photo gallery most of the game pix were taken at the "Spring Thaw" tournament (the pink socks were part of our Men Against Breast Cancer fundraiser) that our team hosts every year. Our own Bill Evans can be seen in two pix whoring for the Marines.


I'm actually a little disappointed with the tenor of the article though. The Hooligans have been up and down over the years (that's every rugby team), but there was a stretch of 2-3 years when they were dominating our division and doing well every year in the Military Nationals.
I'm proud to say that I've played with and against many of the Hooligans over the years and consider them friends; any suggestion that these ruggers aren't as good or as tough as any others in the Potomac Rugby Union is patently ridiculous.

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Monday, March 24, 2008

Bus 2 NY

Hey All,

Reuben and I are booked on the 6:30pm DC2NY bus (http://www.dc2ny.com/home.aspx). If you're looking at busing it up there Friday evening and want company jump on that bus.

-Koz

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West Potomac Travels to NYC

We have confirmed the Central Park Hostel for 14 beds in dorm style.

Here is the link to the hostel, http://www.centralparkhostel.com/

Based on the head count from practice and a few e-mails I booked 14 beds. If for some reason more than 14 people show up, then you should have e-mailed me.

Start planning on you are getting up to New York. If anyone just wants to go up for Friday night and come back Saturday because they are tired of traveling so much then we can organize a car for those people.

bible

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Heading to NY Friday

Hey Guys,

Who is going on the Chinatown or WiFi bus friday afternoon? Or, is anyone who is staying in the hostel going up by alternate means? I can make the 6 o'clock bus or later, however that is flexible. Lemme know.

Go to practice Tuesday and Thursday even if your not going to NY...we need a huge effort from everyone the next 3 weeks. Our team is greater than the sum of it's parts, but we can't achieve greatness unless all our parts are there.

-Koz

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Friday, March 21, 2008

Saturday's a Rugby Day

Gentlemen,

We kickoff tomorrow at noon Against James River. We need to get as many people out to the pitch by 9:00 to help construct/set up posts and line the field, so take it easy tonight so that you can make it on time and help out your mates.

We will have a second match before Georgetown's playoff match at 3:00, so everyone who makes it out there will get some playing time. The party afterwards will be at Hamilton's and they are one of the bars on the the annual Capitol Hill Bunny Hop bar crawl, so it should be nothing short of a show.

See you tomorrow,

Sideshow

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ACCOKEEK NEIGHBORHOOD PARK
16100 Livingston Rd
Accokeek, MD 20607
map

Pay particular attention to your mileage while on Indian Head Highway (Rte. 210 South) because there are several Livingston Roads, so be sure to turn at the correct one. You need the Livingston Road in Accokeek - at this traffic light, Rte. 373 is on the left; Livingston Road is on the right. A landmark is B & J Carryout on the right.

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Thursday, March 20, 2008

Live Blog from Hamilton's

-[censored]'s bald spot described as a "skin yarmulke"
-Pete the Rock branded a scavenger
-Bible asks if I'm OK
-Reminiscing about Door and Van Gogh

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This Rugby Season and Practice Tonight

Gentlemen,

We are now 3 short weeks from our MARFU show down with Harrisburg. We have worked long and hard, running up and down hills, doing leopard crawls through the mud, being chased by Murray with a cattle prod, having to deal with Skittles and his ridiculous shoes, to get to the point where we are able to represent the PRU as champions. Yet all of that work, our undefeated fall season, our 7s trophies, our spring thaw victories, mean nothing if we fail when we face Harrisburg. We have come this far not to be complacent or proud of where we are, we have come this far so that we can have the opportunity to go farther.

With three short weeks left, we are still running basic passing and tackling drills while other teams are practicing as full teams, tweaking their plays, working on their collective timing. Unfortunately we have not been able to do this, for it is difficult to practice on the scrum sled when we have 6 forwards. We cannot work our back line plays when we have a different set of backs out each practice. While other teams are preparing with team continuity and cohesiveness and perfection, we are seemingly preparing for a push up contest playoff game because we drop balls in simple passing drills. Fortunately we are not preparing for a push up contest, but for a rugby play off game because we are damn good rugby players and a damn good rugby team who has not lost a single game in almost a year.

So it is time for everyone to come to practice so that we can start working on things such as team spacing, and cohesiveness. For our forwards to learn where breakdowns naturally occur in our backline, for our backs to learn when to begin their runs out of scrums and lineouts. In order to do this, we must have everyone at practice, healthy, sick, walking wounded, Gessner or just old. If you can do no more than stand in space as opposition, our team is better off then if you weren't there because we don't have to waste a healthy body to stand there.

I'm asking everyone to come out to practice this evening, to commit yourself at practice to doing the little things correctly like catching the ball with two hands, setting solid rucks and mauling platforms, going up to catch the ball in the air, using dummies on passes, etc. so that we can move beyond the basic and start practicing and fine tuning and playing at a level that we are truly capable of. If we do that, and after we beat Harrisburg and our next opponent, and when we are on the plane flying back from nationals in Austin, then we can sit back and be proud of what we've accomplished.


MJ

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Monday, March 17, 2008

Transportation to NYC

I don't know about anyone else, but I try to keep my car out of NYC whenever possible; that combined with the fact that my wife laughed in my face when I asked if she would mind driving the hoopty for the weekend so I could take the new car up to New York, means I'm not driving up and I'm looking to slum a ride.  I think I have a tenative agreement with Pete the Rock to ride up with him, but things have a way of falling apart so I'm hedging my bets and looking at other transportation options.
 
The train is crazy expensive, like $200 for a roundtrip at the times we're looking so that's out.  However, there are a couple of different Chinatown Bus options that are only about $40 roundtrip and a couple of slightly more upscale bus service that includes wireless internet and a new bus service that looks like it's already sold out for the weekend we're traveling.  If anyone is interested in taking the bus up to NYC and removing drunk driving as one possible way to get arrested at a rugby tournament leave a comment and let me know.
 
Later,
 
KJ

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NYC lodging, CIPP, etc.

Gentlemen,

Below are a few bits of information about the New York trip and CIPP status as well as some other bits and pieces.

Just a reminder that we have practice this Tuesday and Thursday from 7-9 at Benning-Stoddert. We had some good training session last week but a disappointing turn-out on Saturday. let's plan to get out there on time and ready to work so that we can prepare ourselves for a very tough opponent in James River this Saturday.

The match this weekend will be at Accokeek and we are kicking off at 2:00. Before our match, Georgetown is going to be playing a playoff game, at noon, so plan on getting out early to help with field set-up and then to cheer on the Hoyas.

Your pal,
Sideshow

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NYC LODGING

We are once again reserving space at a hostel but this time it will be closer to the drink-up and transportation options (www.centralparkhostel.com). Dorm beds are $32/night and they also have private rooms available ($115) if you are bringing a lady-friend or other such nonsense.

Please email Bible (davegedeon (at) gmail.com) by Tuesday night to let him know if you are in for Friday and/or Saturday. The earlier we get back to them, the easier it will be to reserve a couple rooms for just West Pot.


CIPP STATUS AND MARFU ELIGIBILITY

Thanks to everyone that has gone ahead and gotten themselves registered with USA Rugby. There are still a couple notable omissions from the list and selections for this weekend will be affected, so if you don't see your name on the list below get registered!

Also, just wanted to give a heads-up as early as possible, but everyone will need proof of citizenship for the MARFU Final Four weekend (4/19 - 4/20) so start digging out those birth certificates or passports now.

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Friday, March 14, 2008

Practice Saturday

We'll be having practice on Saturday morning from 10am - Noon at Gravelly Point.

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Thursday, March 13, 2008

Practice tonight...

Gentlemen,

We have practice tonight from 7:00 - 9:00 at Benning-Stoddert with cold beers afterwards at Hamilton's. Get out there on time so that we can get through some basics and into some fun stuff.

Practice on Saturday will run from 10 - noon and most likely be at Gravelly Point. We will confirm that this evening.

Your pal,
Sideshow

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Six Nations Finals Saturday

Enjoy Six Nations rugby with Alexandria Rugby this Saturday!

Join us at O'Connell's in Alexandria to watch the final matches of the Six Nations tournament and see if Wales can hold on against France and take the Grand Slam outright. Come take advantage of the terrific food and drink specials, watch the games with an enthusiastic rugby crowd and support Alexandria Rugby's efforts to promote and develop the game in and around our city. Plan to stick around after the final match for an AR sponsored celebration. We'll have live music, prizes to give away and general merriment all around!

Games and Times:
Italy v. Scotland - 9:00AM
England v. Ireland - 11:00AM
Wales v. France - 1:00PM

Thanks for your support of Alexandria Rugby.

O'Connell's is located at 112 King St. in the heart of historic Old
Town, Alexandria.
website: www.danieloconnells.com
Phone: 703.739.1124




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Monday, March 10, 2008

Practice/Match Recaps

Gentlemen,

Just a reminder that we have practice on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 7:00 - 9:00 at Benning-Stoddert and we will also be training this Saturday from 10:00-noon (location TBD). Please make an effort to get out there on time, as we have a lot to work on based on what we saw on the pitch this weekend.

Speaking of which, I realized that a recap of the past two weeks matches and the MACB fundraiser had not gone out, so quick updates are below.

Cheers,
Sideshow

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Spring Thaw Tournament & MABC Fundraiser(3/1)

West Pot won the tournament going 2-0-1 with victories over Quantico (28-14) and Winchester (26-0) and a tie against Washington Irish. The Man of the Match (aka Yeti) was Peter Banks.

The club managed to raise over $1750 for MACB through our pink/blue sock sale, wristband sale at the bar, and personal donations. Our original goal was $1000, so this was a very pleasant success! Thanks to everyone who helped out to make the matches and fundraiser a success.

West Pot 22 v. Richmond 22 (3/8)

It what will certainly be know as Mudbowl II, West Pot marked up its second straight tie against a D2 opponent. The club came back from an early deficit but was unable to close it out after enjoying a lead for much of the game.

LJ decided to go off with a bang and wore the Red Jacket for his two tries and strong play throughout the match. The Beard earned himself the flattering red pants for a strong showing in his rugby debut in the b-game

Georgetown scrimmage (3/9)
We got a good run in against Georgetown combined a/b side and got a lot of the new guys a solid 80 minutes to learn the game in real time. There was marked improvement over the four 20-minute periods and we had the chance to work guys into different positions and try out some personnel groupings that are going to give us depth as we move towards the playoffs.

There are definitely some guys who used this as an opportunity to prove that they are going to compete for a starting spot, so I hope that everyone is ready to work at practice to earn their next cap.

To unsubscribe to this list please send an email to the webmaster@dcrugby.org.

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