NYM took on White Plains in the September heat on the new turf fields of Randalls Island this past Saturday. White Plains brought their usual, well-drilled game and emerged winners in the A game despite NYM stunning them early.

NYM raced out to a  12-0 lead in the first half thanks to tries by Pete Nelson, cutting through the 10-12 channel, and hooker Andrew Mezo, barging over from short range. This was done with one of the White Plains locks in the sin-bin. Once he came back they started to claw themselves back into the game and through a peroid of constant pressure finally put their wing over int he far corner.

In the second half White Plains again found themsleves down a man and but continued to play some physical rugby around the fringes without gained much ground out wide. This brought them immediate results with an unconverted try through their forwards. On the one occasion they did break through the backs they made it count, their fullback cutting back and finding a hole to go under the posts to score an uncoverted try and take the lead 12-15. NYM fought their way back upfield though and won a penalty, converted by Ian Aokuso, to make it 15-all. With adjustments made in the backline and quicker ball coming from the forwards NYM made good ground and sub flyhalf Dave Elwell put Pete Nelson, now in the centers, into space where he did the rest by going outside his man and gassing the fullback for a converted try and the lead at 22-15. However, a lack of concentration in the forwards allowed White Plains to use their pick-and-go tactics around the fringes and at the scrums to good effect. This resulted in a couple of needless penalties against NYM and the sin-binning of Dan Layfield for a "professional" foul. White Plains then put in a converted try by their number 8, before their lock crashed over the line near with about 7 minutes left. NYM could have let the wind be knocked out of them at this point now down 27-22 but rallied for a final effort for a converted try. Ian Aokuso came agonisingly short of the line on one run before White Plains snuffed out another attack to bring the final whistle.

Team: 1. La Morgia, 2. Mezo (McCabe 60'), 3. Agnew (Tyler 65'), 4. Weishaupt, 5. Layfield, 6. Perez-Fox, 7. Cush-Fautley (Keegan 70'), 8. Eckstein, 9. Vega, 10. Nelson, 11. Cecil (Brydon 50' to 9, Vega to 11), 12. Venzin, 13. Aokuso, 14. Antoian (Elwell 60' to 10, Nelson to 13, Aokuso to 11), 15. MacDonald.

Tries: Nelson (2), Mezo. Conversions: Aokuso (2), Penalties: Aokuso.

The B-side put in a typically committed performance to come away with a win, especially against a larger pack. Several members of the forwards were prominant in taking the ball forward, notably Sean Danahy, John Keegan and Brian Tyler. In the backs former number 8 and make-shift flyhalf Brynn Ireland consistently made inroads with good support from surrounding players. In the end the difference was two tries from Brynn Ireland, one in either half, and a game saving tackle from Chris Bothur on the final whistle when White Plains looked set to score. Final score 13-8 to NYM.

Photos form the B-side game can be found here. 

After our games we made the short trek north to watch the women take on Beantown under the lights next to Icahn Stadum and put in a great performance for the win.