It’s opening weekend for Sacramento State, as the Hornets take a short trip to Southern California to take on Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara.

It’s a very early start for Sac State but Head Coach Adam Macrae wants his team on the field as soon as possible.

“This mini tour is to gauge how our team has progressed over the last couple of months,” said Macrae. “We are a very young team, but the men have bought into our run-and-gun style of play, and we've been scoring a lot of points this fall.” 

Nick Weeder returns at flyhalf, and has done well in running an offense that features center Wayne Capers, who has been giving teams problems all fall with his hard-running style.

Up front, new forwards coach Will Beck has improved set piece play, and flankers Fehoko Faotusia, and Michael Rascon are excellent on defense, while lock Blake Nicolas is a game breaker.

“It's not common to see locks scoring 60-meter tries, but he seems to do it every game,” said Macrae. “He came in this season really fit, and it has paid off.”  

Things are a little different now with the DIAA Sac State team taking on two DIA teams. 

“We are expecting two really tough games this weekend,” said Macrae. “Cal Poly always has great athletes and they know how to play rugby.  Santa Barbara is well coached, and it will be a dogfight the whole game.”

Sac State’s team does not have much of a budget - a sad state of affairs given the rugby talent in the region - and that’s the main reason they play in DIAA.

“I know our team can play at the DIA level,” said Macrae.