Fifty angry New Yorkers showed up in Maryland on Sunday, September 27th to rally for their cause: WPL Rugby...

Sunday marked the halfway point of the WPL's inaugural season and the D.C. Furies were looking to secure their first premiership win against New York. For the first ten minutes, their aspirations appeared to be well founded as the Furies fought hard and maintained most of the possession. D.C. looked to gain the New York 22-meter line and their efforts were supported by three penalties committed by NY in the first few minutes of the match. D.C. appeared to be a strong competitor as New York could not find their feet nor stick their tackles, and on three separate occaisions D.C. managed to hold up the ball in their own try-zone to keep the score at 0-0.

Despite the Fury's efforts to redeem themselves from a a 75-0 loss to Beantown the previous week, New York soon proved to be too strong an opponent. Vanesha McGee scored her first of four tries at the 15 minute mark. The first try opened the floodgates for NY. Seven minutes later,McGee made a break at the 50-meter line and popped a pass to Phaidra Knight who took off, changing direction multiple times and weaving in and out of players before a graceful, well placed stiff arm allowed her to touch the ball down. Minutes later, NY would strike again with a try that showcased the team's continuity: prop Lara Vivolo and center Tyshawn Henry strung together a number of swing passes that got the ball out wide and led to more points for NY. The Furies had a resurgence of energy before the first half ended, but their efforts were deflated by the discipline of the New York defensive effort.

The dominance of the New York forwards was felt in the scrum and seen in their line-outs. New York only gave up eight penalties on the day, six of which came in the first half of play. New York continued to demonstrate their dominance on the field in the second half and tries were made by both forwards and backs: Katie Brethel was the first to score, followed by captain Rebecca Brafman. Knight and McGee crossed over the tryline again to push New York's final score into the high fifties. Hedwig Aerts, sporting number ten for the Orange and Blue, made all eight conversions of the game. Her defensive tenacity helped New York keep D.C. off the scoreboard for the entire 80 minutes leading to a New York victory of 56-0. 

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Link to match write-up in RugbyMag.com