A little downtime this weekend will start with some touch rugby at Reed college here in Portland, OR. I have been attending their Sunday touch matches for a while now. Playing with a nice mixed group of youngins and older union guys too broken to play tackle anymore. It's killer cardio, super fast paced, and helping me up my field skills. My goal is to be the fastest forward on my team, heads up play like a back, shoulder down play like a prop. This turkey day we will play 2 hours of touch before we all head off to the families to fill our bellies.
Then it's time to watch some rugby! Upcoming matches I am watching: USA vs Georgia. Georgia(rank 12) is a higher ranked team than the US(rank 17) however the US has a history of beating Georgia in test matches. In 2009 USA took the win in their first meeting with the Georgians 31-13, however losing the following year in Tibilisi. With a nice rivalry budding the two teams met again in 2012 and the US triumphed once again at 36-20. 2013 saw the two teams clash twice, the first match was a true test the teams trading trys and penalty scores back and forth to a last-second win for the US at 25-23. The second meeting was in world sevens, not union and the US took Georgia 26-19, but second-half play started to display bad habits that plagued them the rest of the tourney. 2014 saw the USA U-20s meet the Georgians again in a kick-fest of a game, with only 1 try scored the entire 80 minutes the boys in blue managed to eek out another victory at 13-12. most recently Georgia managed to put the Eagles down 21-17 in the Emirates Airline Summer Series. This is setting up to be a good head thumping game and I look forward to seeing if the Eagles can step up to the challenge. Hard to say against a team 5 spots ahead of you in the standings.
What fixtures are you looking forward to this weekend? I am also looking forward to watching the Scots vs the Aussies. I could watch Stuart Hogg dance down a field all day, what a machine!