The team selections were slanted to reflect the group making the Savannah tour and with the temperatures up near 80F it seemed to be a good test of our fitness ahead of the tournament.

In the A-side the forwards worked well – Jason Dagostino had a strong outing at tight head; Sage slotted in well and in general the guys all contributed. We had some issues in the scrum mainly timing between hooker and scrum half meaning that the ball was pretty low quality. In the lineout we did OK – at least the ball we generated from that platform was good quality, and the animal call worked well. We were a bit high at the breakdown – Richmond did a good job of counter rucking on a number of occasions and a number of back line moves fizzled out with a dropped pass. To be honest with you it looked like a team playing their first match after the winter break. The temperature did us no favors – we looked a bit flat and tired.

Richmond managed to put together a series of punches from a 5m scrum leading to a try between the posts with about 10 minutes remaining and that was the difference in the game. Frederick lost 0 – 7.

In the B-side the guys seemed a bit more jazzed up and we put more pace on the ball – in the first half we were quite comfortably ahead by two tries to none from Brian Taormina and Sean Rafferty (plus a Kenny Orndoff conversion). In the second half we got a bit sloppy and penalties put Richmond in good scoring positions. The home team came back to even things up with two tries of their own. Frederick tied the match 12 – 12.

We certainly have areas to work on but the matches gave the players and coaching staff a point of reference and hopefully we can build through March with some tough contests coming up.

Thanks as always to Richmond for being such great hosts; we always enjoy traveling to their home pitch and look forward to seeing them in the league this fall. Congratulations to our MVPs – both played with determination and power out there, A-side Steve Strickland, B-side Adam Laurence.