Collegiate Rugby Shield: Who We Saw
Collegiate Rugby Shield: Who We Saw
(An Opinion Column by Goff Rugby Report)—The Peaks vs Canyons Collegiate Rugby Shield accomplished its goal.
That’s the first thing. Players who might not have received a lot of notice moving into MLR Draft time got a chance to be seen doing good things. For many of them it’s not necessarily about being drafted, but perhaps about being signed as an undrafted free agent.
Scouts, coaches, and many with opinions had a close look at the game, and so did we. So after going through the action but NOT tracking specific statistics, here is our impression of some players we thought did well, and while.
Chandler Owens, Kansas
Not a surprise to use, really. As a player with the KC Jr. Blues he had good vision, a really good boot, and just wasn’t particularly flustered much as a flyhalf. Same goes for how he plays now. How many flyhalf positions are open for American-born and -trained players in Major League Rugby? Not many, but you could do worse than invest in a player like Owens.
Sebastiano Villani, St. Bonaventure
Pretty obvious to anyone watching the game, even if you didn’t know much about rugby, that Villani was a dangerous player. He had a very direct influence on his team’s first two tries and, more than all of the dummies and the runs and things, he provided quick and consistent service. That unglamorous stuff is actually more important.
Gabe Kettering, Lindenwood
A powerful runner at hooker and pretty good on the throws, Kettering also had a couple of examples of quick thinking and understanding of what was needed at key moments. He also hits hard.
Nate Curtis, Central Michigan
Got to love a D2 club player showing well like this. Curtis dominated his conference in tries scored but here, while he did eventually score a try, he was on this list before he did that. He showed up in all sorts of ways, setting up opponents, making sure when he was tackled the ball was available, making ground, producing tackles. He doesn’t look especially large but he’s powerfully-built and we think, just from the assumption that D2 club players aren’t automatically considered draft prospects, that he raised his stock considerably.
Kaleb Boleyn, Northern Iowa
We mentioned in a previous article that players who are captains, club presidents, and club organizers are players you should keep an eye on. Obviously anyone with that level of passion would be an asset to any rugby club, but Boleyn was right there on a performance level in this game. Is he too small to be an MLR hooker? Don’t know—if you subscribe to the "better people make better All Blacks" theory it shouldn't matter. What we do know is if MLR passes and I were the Chicago Lions or Chicago Griffins I would be falling all over myself to get him to move to the Windy City, get him a job, and get him playing for my club.
Kyle Sikora, Bowling Green
We would have tapped this guy before the game as a potential game-changer. He has the size and power and athletic ability, and he got stuck in.
Sam Williams, Adrian College
Williams was brilliant as a counter-attacking fullback for Adrian and then did the same for the Canyons. He did get a pass cut off on one counter and that’s a lesson in “oh yeah, all of these guys know what they’re doing.”
Devin Rivet, Arizona State
Another player whose qualities were obvious for anyone watching. Speed, elusiveness … all of that was exciting. What he also did was rip the ball out of a ballcarriers arms … at least twice. He also made at least one really excellent open-field tackle. So he’s more than just a pretty face. Sevens anyone?
James Rivers, Arizona
Big body, which is easy to see, but he also used it. He had one sequence where he just rocked a ballcarrier (good), and then got up to make another tackle (even better), and then loitered in a clearly offside position before needlessly jumping on the scrumhalf (derp). Sorry, in this situation two out of three is still bad. If he gets back onside and allows his teammates to make a tackle, his team is better off. Still, so much upside.
Angus Kelly, Florida
Kept looking up his number and thinking “who is that?” Good hands. Good defense.
Josh Dowdeswell, UCLA
Same as Kelly. Once we figured out that his red scrumcap was not the same as the red-dyed hair of Tomas Casares, we rewound and realized he kept doing useful, unfancy things.
Tomas Casares, Thomas More
One of the things about rugby and in fact basketball and hockey, too, is that when a player touches the ball (or puck) a lot he also is responsible for more mistakes. Casares was asked to do a lot. He accomplished a lot, but he also made mistakes. I wonder what the evaluation would have been had he only played five minutes. He’s an excellent player who took on a ton of responsibility and was a good runner, good defender, and worked very hard in tough conditions.
Sione Mahe Nau, Snow College
Hard hitter, exciting runner; just kept making plays.
Matias Caramuti, Thomas More
He was the Man of the Match and yes he ran the Peaks attack really well and, specifically, in the latter stages of the first half when the heat and wind could have taken its toll.
There aren’t any players we saw who really didn’t look like they should be there (although, some players didn’t get much time). There are some other players who did a couple of good things and that was fine. We didn’t want to make this too much of a participation trophy list—everybody was awesome! If we didn’t mention you, it didn’t mean you played poorly. It meant you probably met expectations, or didn’t play a lot of minutes.
