An intense and competitive Florida Youth Rugby Boys DI season comes down to this - four teams with a shot at the state title.

For a while, it seemed as if the Tampa Krewe might cruise to the championship. Tampa began 5-0 and it would have taken a real pessimist to point out that some of those victories were very, very close. But since then the Krewe have gone 1-2-1, dropping from 1st to 4rd. Meanwhile, RBMA has been on a roll, winning their last four.

“It’s been a long season,” said Tampa Coach Eric Saunders. “Having nine games in this new format has been great. It allows us to play different teams, well-coached teams, but it’s demanding, too.”

Tampa is a young team, and has learned a lot through the season, said Saunders, and it will only help them going forward. But with playoff rugby upon them, the Krewe have a short-term job to do.

“We had some young guys and some guys who had never played rugby before, and we’re really happy with how the guys have developed,” said Saunders. “Now we know we need to sit own RBMA’s backline. We need to be physical. We need to be technically solid. And we need to tackle.”

The Krewe high-schoolers sometimes get a visit from the Krewe men’s team, who serve as tackle targets and help work with the forwards. It’s a nice educational tool the club has, and could help them going into the playoffs.

Meanwhile, we also have Orlando v Jupiter in a game that promises to be very close. In fact, the entire league has been close. Seventeen games out of the 45 played in Florida were tied or within a try. That’s a remarkable stat. Twenty-nine games were within two tries. Of those 17 close games, RBMA was in six of them, winning four and tying one.