Plymouth State’s Norsemen Rugby Football Club submitted to defeat last Sat., Oct. 18. The loss was to in-state rival Keane State, with a final score of 19-17.
From the Norsemen, Barry McShane scored the first try, followed by Jim Brady and Chris Tofte. As the team’s kicker, Tofte made one of three possible conversions, claiming that his first kick was called “bad” when it was actually “good,” had the goal posts been a foot higher.
Despite the loss, the Norsemen are guaranteed a spot in the Division III New England play-offs starting next week against Tufts University in Boston. The team is certain that this single game will not reflect their performance in the post-season.
Tofte, co-captain of the Norsemen said, “There were lots of penalties from sloppy play.” The referee of the match was indeed frugal with cards on Saturday, giving a yellow-card to Tom Mulcahy and Chris Tofte-for “aggressive play”-and a red-card to Keith McEwen-for still insubstantial reasons. Mulcahy and Tofte’s yellow-card resulted in a ten-minute game expulsion, while McEwen was not allowed to return. With twenty-five minutes remaining in the game upon Tofte and McEwen’s penalty, PSU was down two players on the field, but still holding their line strong to prevent Keene from any further scoring.
“We would have scored more, but we were slow-not on top of our game,” said Jim Brady, co-captain of the Norsemen. According to Luke Schlotman, a Norseman, “Rucking lost the game for us-the ref. kept calling against us for wheeling.” Wheeling is when the defending team in a scrum rotates the scrum 180 degrees to gain possession of the ball. Schlotman said the referee was calling Plymouth’s wheeling “too fast,” when in reality there is no specific time frame during which a team can wheel.
To worsen the situation, Nate Fox rolled his ankle at the beginning of the game, Fox being a veteran player for the Norsemen. Also, Casey Murphy, a b-side player, stepped in as forward due to another injury. Murphy broke his nose quickly after his debut, but continued to play “fantastically,” according to Chris Lind, a Norsemen.
Last week, the Norsemen played again Franklin Pierce College in Nashua, with an astounding score resulting in 55-7, PSU. According to Brady, Franklin Pierce is a sub-par rival; their win was only expected.
As for this week’s game, Lind summarized the team’s performance well when he said, “We weren’t putting it together; the gaps were there, the runs were there, but we weren’t finishing them off.” Next week the Norsemen should “finish off” those gaps and runs against Tufts in their first play-off match of the season. The team still holds the most points in the league.