The second match saw us take on Air Force 1. Frederick had been moved up to D1 from D2 – not exactly what we wanted at this stage of the season and this unit looked pretty impressive. We got the watch them play the United Irish team ahead of our match and although they went on to win comfortable (55 – 0) the Irish guys absolutely stuffed them in the scrum – giving us confidence in our ability to match them in that area.
I’m not going to pretend that we were in the same class as these guys – we clearly were not – but they were so fast with their support and so much slicker that the referee either gave them the benefit of the doubt or just wasn’t close enough to see the forward pass for their first try of the deliberate knock on gathered for their second try. Very frustrating as I was trying to coral the referee touch judge who should have overturned both tries – but the guy apparently didn’t understand English!
Finally we made something happen and it was really Cooper making a brilliant gain out of nothing. He collected a loose ball, did his classic high pop kick and out paced the Air Force defense to the line. The fact that two of the Air Force guys slammed him to the ground instead of going for the ball meaning that we were awarded a penalty try (slotted by Scott Wade) shouldn’t take that score away from Coop. The United Irish guys on the sideline were cheering away at somebody scoring n the Air Force – nice to have some extra support!
At the half the Air Force was comfortable ahead with 6 tries to 1 at 7 – 35 and Frederick were effectively out of the contest. We made our rotations at the half and to the credit of the guys everyone kept their heads up and tried, there wasn’t any moaning or asking to come off which is to their credit. The Huntington tight five guys were not so interested in joining the fray, which meant that big Joe Flanagan got a full game against Air Force 1. Alan Byrne on the sidelines (our sole traveling supporter) noted that Lurch was getting himself about well and was much more of an impact in defense than last season – putting in a good number of tackles. Jake Hood came on at the wing and made some big tackles on the Air force monsters and obviously Sage Winn introduced himself to a number of them. After they had danced past a few Frederick guys they had the hammer put down on them! Moments like that keep a team’s determination up and although it sounds a bit defeatist we limited Air Force to just 4 second half tries running out a final score of Frederick 7, Air Force 1 62.