The Rocky Mountain D1A Conference got off to an interesting start with intense rivals Colorado State and Colorado replicating the weekend's football fixture.
The new-look CSU approach, now that (relatively) new Head Coach Jone Naqica has had some time to formulate his plan, was quite impressive in a 40-18 defeat of the Buffaloes.
Naqica's plan, in part, was to identify the strongest rugby players in the squad and then find a place for them in the starting 15. That has meant some positional changes. Flyhalf Sam Masterson is now at inside center. Lock Mason Kreiter is now at No. 8, and Rylan Palmer has moved to prop from hooker.
This is opened up some space for some talented freshmen, including Brock Scanlan, Elian Aguilar, and Logan Braegger. The result is an aggressive rugby team that plays fast.
Colorado took the early lead with a penalty goal, but the Rams started to show what they could do once they secured some possession. Hard running by forwards Kreiter, Palmer, and Scanlan led to Masterson having time to drop kicks on the Colorado wings with pinpoint accuracy. This put that Buffs' deep three under some pressure and eventually that produced penalties, and those penalties led to tries.
Within 20 minutes it was 24-3. Kreiter had scored two tries and Masteron one, with the center converting all three and adding a penalty.
Defensively CSU showed some speedy line speed, making it difficult for CU to get go-forward and the big forwards found themselves have to circle around to secure rucks instead of surging downhill.
As a result CU's game was spent trying to regain initiative rather than spinning it to their backs.
Colorado and CSU did trade penalties to make it 27-6 at the break.
