Head coach Ryszard Chadwick has wanted to see a fully clean performance from his charges, and that 95-7 win over BYU might have been close.
"We were relentless," Chadwick said of the game. "We didn’t give BYU anything all game. We had one two-to-three-minute period where we compounded penalties and that led to their try, but apart from that we were so intense and so physical."
It sounds almost perfect. Almost.
"Still we could offer so much more," said the coach." We had 10 points missing from the tee, we lost possession 18 times due to being too excited and throwing the ball away, and we had a 64% 22m entry conversion rate."
this against a pretty strong BYU outfit.
"BYU are well organized, have good skills, and are good in the breakdown," said Chadwick. "We were just mentally and physically on another level."
And that is probably quite true. Life has become a high-performance development program and it doesn't seem to matter if their opponents are women's clubs or top college teams—they're going to have trouble. Only Peaks Rugby Academy (a team of USA and professional hopefuls), Houston sHARCs, and Queens University Charlotte were able to score more than 10 points against them. In fact, those three teams accounted for 62% of the points Life gave up all season.
The other 11 opponents managed just 27.
Now Life finishes off the regular season in a game where they should clinch 1st in the Texas Women's Premiership. Right now the Running Eagles are tied in the standings with Houston, but a win should break that tie.
Then it's on to the CRAA playoffs at the end of March in Houston. There remain contenders in the CRAA D1, but all eyes have to watching Life.
