DeepSouthRugby.Net Covers USA v Uruguay
by Tom Crosby

DeepSouthRugby.net Report from USA v Uruguay (27-6) – November 26, 2009

                On the Wednesday before the match on Saturday, November 20^th, my loving wife & destiny (Carolyn) and I got a little crazy and decided to ask for a personal day on Friday to fly to Florida to watch the USA world cup qualifying match against Uruguay. We’re currently working in Honduras which recently (end of September) qualified for the 2010 soccer world cup. The country is still celebrating. There is possibly no other school administration in the world which would have said yes, but in present day Honduras nothing made more sense. We booked the 3:45 pm flight to Miami for the next day and by 10:30 pm on Thursday we were enjoying a beautiful cool starlit night at our cottage on Ft Myers Beach.

Match day was a perfect south Florida day. The morning was cool and a little foggy, but this quickly burned off as we sped across Alligator Alley. I was trying to arrive to catch at least the second half of the “warm-up match” of the Florida U-20 vs Georgia U-20 before the 2 pm kickoff of the Eagles match. The stadium at the Central Broward Regional Park in Lauderhill (west Ft. Lauderdale) was able to successfully elude being exactly located by MapQuest, but once in the area the locals were pretty sure it was the stadium where soccer was played just past the Swap Shop ( a huge outdoor flea market and drive-in theater).

By 1 pm I was seated with a decent arepa ($4) and a Heineken ($6). The Florida U-20 vs Georgia U-20 match never materialized. The stadium was a new and clean multi-purpose facility with (I estimate) a capacity for about 4,000 under covered seating. It seemed built to handle everything from a rock concert to a baseball game with plenty of room for a rugby match. The beer truck was set up at midfield about 30 meters behind the players benches with a nice grassy area in front to watch the match from or you could pick your seat in the stands. I estimated the crowd at about 2,500 and read later the official count was about 2,250. The pregame show consisted mostly of about 6 teenage Uruguayan girls passing out Uruguay flags to a couple of south Florida youth rugby teams who proudly waved them seemingly oblivious to the fact that they were waving the flag of the opposition. As the match approached the show reached its climax as the Eagle mascot was tackled by a Uruguayan fan wearing a large Uruguay flag for a cape.

From the kick-off the USA was tackling hard. This was probably their great plus on the day. The forward loose play was good with an excellent game by Stanfill (1 try) and Clever (2 tries). Hercus delivered the ball well to outside backs and had his usual solid kicking game, but the centers were not able to make breaks or give the ball to the wingers with any space. Takudze was only given a couple of opportunities on the day and for most of the first half the center, Emerick, (or possibly the fullback Wyles coming into the line, but I think it was Emerick) ran to the outside and delayed passing until he was in contact. This closed the space that Takudze had and Emerick took himself out of being able to offer support. On one play Emerick ran about 20 meters sideways forcing Takudze to scissors back inside to struggle to make the gainline  when a quick pass would have allowed a nice break with support. Swyrin (on the other wing) had to make his own breaks off of kicks. He and Wyles did a great job covering kicks. Each side won their lineouts. Uruguay set pieces showed the years of playing against tough Argentinean scrums and although they weren’t overwhelming, they had the better of the Eagles in the scrums. All in all a good performance by the Eagles, but certainly not great especially considering Uruguay had a man red carded late in the first half.

Clever was certainly the man of the match playing for all he was worth up to the final whistle and scoring his second try in the final minutes. After the match he led the team around the length of the stands and then was the last player off the pitch, stopping to have his picture taken with a baby. He is a class act!

The Eagles are now headed to New Zealand for the 2011 World Cup and they have probably ended in the pool where they will have the best shot of winning a match. Their pool includes Australia, Ireland, Italy, and the yet to be decided Europe 2 side. I think Russia, Georgia, & Romania are the top contenders for the Europe 2 spot.  The current IRB world rankings have Russia 16^th, USA 17^th, Georgia 18^th, and Romania 19^th.  (Uruguay was ranked 21^st when the Eagles played them.)

The Eagles schedule will be:

Sept. 11, 2011 vs Ireland in New Plymouth

Sept. 15, 2011 vs Europe 2 in New Plymouth

Sept. 23, 2011 vs Australia in Wellington

Sept. 27, 2011 vs Italy in Nelson

Hope to see you there!  Cheers, Croz

 If interested in tour information for tours to NZ for 2011 World Cup, email deepsouthrugby@hotmail.com.