It was great to travel with a full squad of 31 players for our season opener in Richmond. Great weather, around 70F and sunny, and we played two full 80-minute matches.

In the A-side we established a strong lead, up 29 – 13 with 20 minutes to play on the back of tries from Eric Kretzer (2), Nick Dolan, Scott Shackleford and a penalty try. Richmond pressured us after changing out the front three backs and came back into the game with two quick tries before Brian Dills scored to put the game away at 36 – 25. New recruits Justin Maynard at full back, and Joe Brill and Mat Lerch at flank all played well.

In the B-side we took a while to come to terms with Richmond. We featured four of our new rugby-rookie recruits, Nick Reese and Ben Rowe on the flanks, Nick Richardson at lock and Jesse Nolan on the wing, all matured through the game. At the half we were down 24 to 10, our tries coming from Larmyk Balancia and Julian Reading against their four tries but the squad stayed tight and after exchanging tries just after the break, Scott Wade scored a nice one, we went on to add a further four through Larmyk (2 more to make his hat trick) along with Eric Kretzer and Kenny Orndoff to finish up winners on 37 – 29.

Congratulations to our MVPs Justin Maynard and Larmyk Balancia – well deserved.