On a gorgeous day made for rugby on Randalls Island NYM built on their promising showing against White Plains two weeks ago to soundly beat Union at home. Both the A's and B's were impressive in putting them away 40-10 and 33-0 respectively.

NYM's A-side kicked off the day facing a pack that had troubled White Plains. Union brought some good intensity to the first 10 minutes, pounding away through their forwards, but the adjustments made since our White Plains game to ruck and maul defense paid dividends and made sure Union couldn't breach that area. The front row were particularly effective here. NYM caught a break when center Pete Nelson was able to hack through, toeing on before the ball could bounce out of bounds and following up for the try out wide. Wing Ian Aokuso made good with the difficult conversion for a 7-0 lead. That kind of broke Union and although they were solid in the set-piece, giving our scrum some trouble, we made excellent use of the possession we gained. A deep kick lead to the second NYM try. Ian Aokuso returned it powerfully with a huge handoff on their flyhalf and raced into space, as the cover closed he drew them to give Pete Nelson the scoring pass. Dave Elwell made sure with the conversion. Union came back at this point and made steady progress down the field, inducing NYM to commit several penalties at the ruck, eventually leading to the yellow carding of Cody Eckstein for repeated team infringements. It was from one of these penalties about 10m from our line that their scrumhalf took a quick tap and went over for an unconverted try. A measure of how we have progressed was our ability to hit back straight away. After winning a penalty in the Union half, we kicked for the lineout. Quick ball off the top allowed Dave Elwell to put Pete Nelson between two defenders and under the posts for his hat-trick. The final try of the half saw a simple backs move key the Union defenders onto danger-man Nelson opening a huge hole for Matt Venzin to stroll through. NYM went into halftime 28-5 up.

Union came out in the second half determined to take the game back to us and did so through their forwards. Again they pressurized the scrum on our 5m line causing a turnover at the base as the ball squirted out allowing them to score a soft try. NYM immediately hit back again though, as although Union gained good ground form the kick-off their flyhalf telegraphed a miss-pass which was intercepted by Matt Venzin and returned 60m for a converted try. As NYM brought on the subs the game degenerated a little into a more fractured affair punctuated by stoppages and bit of agro. There was still time for a nice backline move to set Ian Aokuso free down the right wing though for a final unconverted try. The whole pack had a great game, especially around the fringes and nullifying any threat thei 8-man might have had due to the new scrum ELVs, AJ was especially good in this regard at the scrums. The backline looked extremely potent in scoring all the team’s points. Thanks to all those who came to watch, especially the Gents of New York who stuck around after their game on the adjacent field. It was great to see three games of rugby going on next to each other on Randalls Island; NYM vs Union, Gents of NY (Old Boys) vs The Lion Kings and CT Grays, and Gotham vs North Jersey.

For the B-side we had a lot of guys down so it was tough to give everyone meaningful game time but it was accomplished in the end. The fresh legs of NYM gave Union a hard time as many of their A-side had to fill in and they also had to scratch for some players. The whole pack was again particularly impressive, even when substitutions could have disrupted their momentum, and gave good ball for the backs to show what they could do. Wing Saad Cecil was the first to profit after a bullocking run by Angel Rodriguez sucked in the defense and caused a penalty. Scrumhalf Ollie Vega tapped quickly and linked with Tim Antoian who sent Saad in. That was the only score of a promising half. The second half saw a raft of changes for NYM but no disruption in our dominance. New Frenchie Charles came on in the centers to great effect, neatly picking up a bouncing ball to go under the posts and make the conversion for Jarron Benjamin, on at wing, easy. Jarron wouldn’t miss in the second half. Next up a scrum against the head gave NYM the ball in the Union half, although Ollie was tackled he managed to pop the ball off to Saad who outstripped the cover to score. Saad was involved in the next try also, coming in off his wing at pace only to be stopped just short of the line. Charles was on hand to pick up at the ruck and go over. The final try saw Scott Crowe, on in the centers, pick up a pass on his bootlaces and go in untouched.

The depth of the Club displayed on Saturday was great to see, as was the performances of both A-side and B-side packs who put in a days work to ensure the backs could cut loose.