Cathedral Catholic Hosts Tourists as SCIRF Season Begins
Cathedral Catholic Hosts Tourists as SCIRF Season Begins
It's season-opening weekend for the CIF teams in Southern California.
Some teams have played some warmup scrimmages, but the season needs to get going before Christmas to make sure everyone gets enough games. Thursday night Cathedral Catholic hosts the Australian Raptors U16s, which is back on tour in SoCal (they played LA RFC earlier in the week). Friday Saint Augustine plays Patrick Henry, and Saturday Mira Costa takes on Fallbrook.
Cathedral will be splitting its squad to play Mission Bay and Mission Vista (Cathedral is in the Platinum Division and those other two are in the Gold Division).
"The whole idea is to get as many games as possible," said former USA 7s and 15s player Matt Hawkins, who is coaching the Cathedral Catholic team this year but is, in fact, this weekend in New Zealand watching his son play for the USA U18s.
The latest information coming out of the CIF is that programs are growing. There has been a significant growth in roster sizes for the girls teams (the Maher-Sedrick-Bronze effect) and the boys teams are also reporting solid numbers. The CIF Platinum boys league will include the Saints, the Dons, La Costa Canyon, Fallbrook, Mira Costa, and Los Alamitos, and there's not an easy win among any of them.
Numbers are strong at Cathedral even as they lose out on some football players.
"Our football team has been quite successful and we have seen a few seniors who have excelled at football decide to concentrate on that," Hawkins told GRR. "But we also have a really strong junior group that is more rugby-focused."
The large numbers have allowed Cathedral to split their squads and run different 15s against different teams this weekend. The Dons will also be playing without captain Spencer Huntley, Kingston Hawkins, and Reese Reiter. All are with the USA U18 7s team at the Global Youth 7s. But with Mason Murphy and Finnegan Kenney providing talent and leadership stateside, they should be fine.
"The boys are excited to put in the hard work and they are very. very focused," said Hawkins.
Now is the time to find some combinations. But we will see the meat of the season come later, as well as some crossover matches with teams from SoCal Youth Rugby and Rugby NorCal.
