The Fort Collins Men faced off against cross town friends and rivals, C.S.U., on Sunday. The match, previously scheduled for Saturday, was played on campus in front of a large group of local rugby supporters. Those in attendance enjoyed a cloudless, beautiful day of spring time sunshine. Unfortunately, the contest on the pitch didn’t live up to the standards set by Mother Nature. Both teams came out very aggressive, and set a fast pace for what would be a long day for the Fort Collins Men. C.S.U. capitalized on poor ball handling and a lack of strong ball support to jump out to an early lead. Fort Collins had many opportunities to establish momentum and gain a foothold in the contest, but even a long scoring dash and strong individual effort by many, including Man of the Match, Jeff Brundage, wasn’t enough to kick start the Flamingos. Dropped passes, and missed tackling seemed to plague the club, as it just wasn’t their day. Each time it appeared the Fort Collins Men were on the verge of closing the early gap established by C.S.U., another mental error, or mishandled ball would open the gate, and C.S.U. would be off to the races. Much credit should be given to the Rams for their aggressive play, and relentless offensive approach, as they were clearly the better club on this day. The Flamingos will, no doubt, need a spirited and productive week of practice, as they prepare to host Boulder this upcoming Saturday. Fort Collins is a proud and talented club of veteran players, and I expect a much better showing next week, but as for this week, thank goodness it was a beautiful day, because their loss to C.S.U. was certainly anything but beautiful.

B-side- On a brighter note, the B-side match was played afterward with many of the A-side players from both teams running double duty. B side Man of the Match, rookie back Ryan Harms, had a breakout afternoon capped off by his scoring the first two tries in his young rugby career. Can anyone say Zulu? Unfortunately, his effort may have come at a great cost as we wait to hear results about a possible shoulder injury. The early moments of the first half were delayed as Fort Collins’ second row player, Chris Fielder took a nasty blow to the head, and had to receive medical attention. I am happy to report that when I questioned him afterward about his condition Chris was quoted as saying “Ya,” which I have assumed meant that he was feeling all right. Both sides exhibited great heart and stamina, as two 30 min. halves were contested with Fort Collins prevailing in a closely played match. Thanks again C.S.U. for a solid afternoon of play, to all who were in attendance, to Conor O’neills for hosting a top notch drink up afterward, and a special thanks to Coach Chvatal who filled in as match referee, and did a fine job. We are all looking forward to next week, when Fort Collins will attempt to bounce back against a tough opponent, Boulder Men.

Yesterday was the St. Valentines Day Massacre Tournament at Carter Park in Breckenridge. The weather was normal for the mountains, with the sun out and 35° in the morning, and snow flurries, wind and much cooler in the afternoon. The tournament consisted of 12 men’s teams, and 9 women’s teams, with the match format being 10’s rules with 7 minute halves. No points for penalty kicks or conversions, only for tries. The 2 pitches were groomed snow, lined with Kool-aid, and no posts. The western pitch was quite odd shaped, with the in-goal area as shallow as a meter in places. Each team had 3 qualifying matches, with the four teams that did best playing semi-final matches.

The Flamingo’s first match was versus Metro State. Fort Collins scored 2 fairly quick tries dominating the first half. Fort Collins traveled extremely well to this tournament, having as many as 27 players including several players from Glenwood, and visiting players from Fort Collins past like Mike Coco. So in their matches they were able to completely replace all the players at half time. So the second half of the match against Metro State ran a little differently, with two interesting moments. The first was an issue with the previously mentioned lack of depth on the in-goal area, as Tom Behr, on a break away, with no opposition, ran straight through the dead ball line nullifying what should have been the third try for the Flamingos. Metro State put a try on the board somewhere in this half too. Off a 5-meter scrum with Metro State close to scoring, the ref indicated that the next stoppage would be the end of the match. It was Fort Collins put in, so a play was called to get the ball back to the fly-half and kick it out of bounds to end the match with a 2-1 win. However Donny Slager, playing scrum-half, chose to kick it himself, attempting to kick it out of the back of the try zone. He slipped and the ball wobbled into in-goal, and Metro State recovered it for a try, ending the match with a 2-2 tie. Both Donny and Tom were rewarded for their bumbles at kangaroo court that evening.

The second qualifying match was against DU. The Flamingos dominated the match and ended with a 4-0 win. The elevation of the pitches should be mentioned at this juncture. Carter Park lies at about 9,615 feet above sea level based on USGS topographic maps (9,600 as stated on the tournament t-shirts, and 9,652 based on this reporter’s GPS reading when arriving at the pitch). So while 7 minute halves sounds like it would be quite easy, this reporter found that the way he felt at the end of the half to be about equivelent to how he feels after a normal 40 minute half. Surely running through the snow adds to the fatigue factor as well.

The third match was against Western State. Fort Collins was awarded a penalty try midway through the first half. After a pop kick by the flamingos, Jeff Brundage and a Western player were chasing the ball down. Jeff was beating his man, and soccer kicked the ball toward the try zone. Jeff was obviously going to recover the ball for a try when the Western player tackled him from behind. The referee justifiably awarded the penalty try. This turned out to be the only score of the entire match, and Fort Collins won 1-0.

This win against Western State secured second seed for the Semi finals. A win against Metro State would have assured Fort Collins first seed. Second seed would play third seed, so Fort Collins would face Queen City in the semi-finals.

The semi-final match was a hard fought match with Queen city scoring 2 tries in the first half by exploiting overloads and a missed tackle or two, and Fort Collins scoring once with hard driving forward’s play. Of course the on going rivalry with Queen City drove passions on both sides, and the Flamingos were raring to go in the second half. Queen City was held scoreless, but the Flamingos were able to push in another try to tie the game at 2-2 when regular time ended. The semi finals have to have a winner, so the game went into sudden death overtime with 5 minute periods. Overtime was back and forth until Queen City was able to create and exploit another overload, and ran the ball in for a try withing inches of touch, but enough of a try to secure the semi-final win.

Queen City faced Breckenridge Blue Geese which was a very heated match a Queen City player sent to the sin bin and a Blue Goose player ejected. With 1-1 after regular time, this match went into a double sudden death overtime, with Breckenridge scoring about 8 minutes after regular time, giving them the tournament win.

This was a great start to Fort Collin’s spring season. 25 participating players this weekend, new commitments from a total of 22 players to be Core players, will hopefully translate to a very active club this season. This reporter was not able to attend pre or post game festivities (except for Kangaroo court). Perhaps someone else can fill in some details?

Feb 16, 2005: This reported has been corrected about the score in the semi-final match against Queen City. Apparently the score was 1-0 with the Flamingos in the lead going into the half, and Queen City scored twice before Fort Collins tied it up right before regular time ended. As this author was only a beer imbibing spectator for this match, he begs forgiveness for his PBR induced memory loss.

Also with 2nd seed going into finals, and no consolation match, its apparent that the semi-final loss would put Fort Collins in 3rd place on the tournament out of 12 teams. In retrospect Fort Collins should have boat raced with the Highlanders for 3rd place. Next time.

What a great game. The Flamingos came out determined to execute their game plan, and did excellent. Fort Collins shut down the Harlequins offense for most of the match. The Flamingos scored first with a converted try for 7-0. The Harlequins came back with a controversial penalty kick and an even more controversial uncoverted try making the score 7-8 with the Harlequins up by 1. Just a mention about the try: apparently its acceptable to knee and punch the ball forward and still have it considered a try. In any event with no time left, Fort Collins was awarded a penalty kick at a medium distance and angle from the posts. If the kick is good, Flamingos win, and if it misses the Quins win the match. You can’t ask for a more dramatic end to a match. Steve Rimmer was the kicker. He had already missed 2 penalty kicks on the day, but made one conversion. He stepped off his distance from the teed ball, and paused, focusing on the posts. Lightning flashed in the distance as he struck the ball. It floated through the air with a slight forward tumble and perfectly bisected the posts to make it 10-8. The referee blew the whistle to end the game, and the Flamingos proceeded to celebrate a bit too exuberantly for rugby. As far as this writer can tell from the limited records available, this was the first time Fort Collins won against the Harlequins since 2000.

The B match was played entirely in a hail storm, so this writer has no information to report about it, besides the fact that my E-Z-UP canopy appears to be able to protect approximately 22 people from a hail storm. While I think the best weather to PLAY rugby in is a rainstorm, I do beleive that it is the lousiest weather to WATCH rugby in. Everyone who played B side came off the pitch with huge smiles on their faces.

This win puts us at 2 wins and 3 losses for league play, and in 3rd place. There is still an extremely thin chance for us to get into 2nd place. We would have to win against Queen City in 2 weeks, and score at least 48 points AND Colorado Springs needs to beat the Harlequins and hold them scoreless. Heh heh, well I said thin chance didnt I?

Fort Collins was not invited to Ruggerfest, and as of 2 weeks ago was not even entered in this high calibre tournament. But due to the persistance of the Flamingo match coordinator, we were able to jump in last minute. This is a tournament that we look forward to every year, primarily due to the extreme skill shown by the majority of participants. We always learn alot and improve our game, even if we arn’t able to win against the Division 1 and Super League clubs that typically fill the pools.

This year, however, we traveled up to Aspen with a team that is just starting to hit it’s stride, and work together as a team. So we performed much better then expected. Pool play placed us against Grand Rapids and Boulder, both high quality Div 1 clubs. Grand Rapids put some quick points on the board, but were held tryless for the last 30 minutes. They had the best scrum we faced the whole weekend, and wound up winning 26-0.

We surprised Boulder, by coming out strong and scoring the first try. They quickly fired back with their own try and penalty kick leaving the score at 10-7 for the rest of the first half and most of the second half. Their depth and experience overcame our aggresiveness allowing them 2 more tries in the last 5 minutes of the match putting Boulder ahead by 24-7.

This put us against the Kansas Jayhawks on Sunday morning. The Jayhawks are a solid university team, who consistantly are in the sweet 16. Fort Collins, in 2003 was soundly thumped by this very team, so were not to be taken lightly. Most of the team, except this author for one, made sure to get back to the condo early on Saturday night in order to get sufficient sleep for this match. We came out strong, maintaining possession through many phases, scoring a try and several succesful penalty kicks, before the Jayhawks broke through for a try. Unfortunately the author, who did not feel he needed a good nights sleep was the one who missed the tackle to allow the Jayhawk try. The final score saw the Flamingos winning by 15-5.

This win placed us against the Kansas City Blues later in the day. The Blues are a Super League club that had an unlucky seed in pool play, having lost to what turned out to be an extremely strong Kudu U-23 select side, and tying against the University of Oklahoma. This turned out to be a great, very closely matched game. The Flamingos scored 3 points first with a penalty kick in the first half. While still ahead, Fort Collins was awarded a Penalty in a spot that could be fairly easily converted, but chose to go, unsuccesfully, for the try. This was then followed by a long run for a Blues try, making the score going into the half 7-3. With 2 minutes left, Fort Collins was awarded a penalty 10 meters from the Blue’s try line. With a 4 point differential, kicking was out of the question, so we went for the try. For the next 5 minutes, the Flamingos tried forward crashs, back crashes, and mauling and still could not get the ball down. Several penalties were called during this time against the Blues, and thats what kept play going. The argument could be made that several of those should have been called penalty tries. But the whistle was finally blown for a final score of 7-3. Overall an excellent match despite the loss.

Final standing for the weekend was 10th place with a 1-3 record. We learned a lot, and plan to take this momentum into next weeks league match against the Harlequins.

For a slightly different perspective here is commentary from Aaron Fields:

We have just returned from Aspen Ruggerfest and our team played with inspiration and heart. The weekend ended with our team record at 3 losses and 1 win. The record does not adequately portrey the level of rugby that our team displayed this past weekend.

Our first game was against a large Div 1 side from Grand Rapids, MI. It was a tough game and our guys played hard, but this was a great warm up for the rest of the weekend(23-0). Next game vs. Boulder (another D1 side). Our learning curve was going up quickly and the game ened up at 21-7. Not bad for a team that beat Aspen last season. Needless to say, we partied like rock stars that night, but had to be up for a 9am game vs the KS Jayhawks. This was the game we won. A great team effort…it looked like we had played this game before. That afternoon we prepared to take on a super league team, the Kansas City Blues! To make a long story short we lost the game 7-3. Can you say defense? At the end of the game we had 7 (yes 7) penalties on thier goal line which were blantant attempts at cheating to stop us from scoring…should a been a penalty try!! Then the ref blew the whistle prematurely to end the game. That was our game!!!

On tap for today was a match against Colorado Springs followed by the inaugeral.. er… 1st annual Flamingo Migration Bar Crawl. The match due to some scheduling conflicts was held at Boltz Jr. High instead of the Greenbriar Park.

The pitch lined by the city very nicely, but we had to set up temporary posts. The post on the north side was adorned with a full size American Flag, very nice touch. I could get used to playing here despite the complete ban on alcohol. As Fort Collins is notorious for doing, Colorado Springs traveled with a light side, I think 16 or 17 players. To start the match a moment of silence was held for those who had fallen on 9/11. An emotional start to a match the Flamingos desperately desired to win.

From the start, Fort Collins dominated the game with several tries scored before the half. Unfortunately, because of the excellent bar crawl later that evening (which I will also talk about), I no longer remember enough of the point by point plays to recount every try here. The final score had the Flamingos ahead with a dominating 42-14 giving us our first league win of the season (1-3 in league matches). I have to tip my hat to the Grizzlies though, as they did not let up despite the score. The last play of the match was a linout to the Flamingos about 10 meters from the tryline. A 3 man lineout was called with Cary Dickens as first lifter and me winding up as second lifter. The movement was a faked “scrumhalf” insert with the ball popped to the first lifter. It worked great with the defensive lifter opposite Cary commiting to a lift, leaving only a hooker between Cary and a try. Well that little guy wasn’t going to stop Cary as he drove himself and the hooker in goal and scored his first try for the club. Cary still owes the zulu, and due to a prior side-bet between him and I, I now get to treat him to dinner.

Chad Parker received man of the match for his outstanding work on the day, including two tries. A thanks also goes out to Greg Chvatal for recognizing our weaknesses and designing training excercises the last 2 weeks to work toward fixing those problems. Even though the training was tough, and we had a number of injuries, the work we did showed up on the pitch this day.

For the B-side match several Fort Collins players joined with the Grizzlies. I’m not sure what the final score was but I am sure the Flamingos won by “alot”. The Flamingos had two consecutive kick-off returns directly go in for tries. Mike “Winger-Hair” Duncan also scored his first try and still owes his zulu. The game was called 10 minutes early when Gabe Iltis went down with a neck injury. An ambulance was called and he was taken to the hospital. After x-rays and cat scans it was determined that it was not a serious injury, and he was released (after a shot of morpheine) in time to make it to the bar crawl! He will not be able to play for several weeks however. Joe Dauner was awarded man of the match for the B game.

First Annual Flamingo Migration Bar Crawl

Almost before the after-match party started at CB Potts the 80 bar crawl shirts were sold. I believe the printers were able to get a few more to us, so I think the total number of shirts was around 100. I know I personally had to turn away 4 non-rugby friends for lack of shirts. But the shirts themselves are awesome. Full color designs with the bars on the crawl printed on a large rugby ball on the back. I felt bad about having the bars get marked off.

Thanks go to Terje Whitmore and Word Sauer for pulling this off. While there were minor setbacks with some establishements not letting their staff know that we were coming, and others not honoring their prior promises, all the problems were eventually ironed out by the work of Word and Terje. I don’t know how many of the original 100 actually completed the crawl, but I do know that when the small group I was with was finally able to talk the door guy into letting us into Tailgate Tommys (The place was closing and it was last call and they were not letting anyone in), there were only about 15 of us there. Five of those were Grizzlies and the rest Flamingos. Good times, and I’m sure we will be able to work out the kinks for the 2nd annual Flamingo Migration!

I know a number of pictures were taken during the Migration. Whoever has them (Jim, Jeff, and ?), please email (or bring a disk) to me a few good ones for the website.

Besides the exciting baby news, today has turned out to be quite a disappointment for the Flamingos, as they fall to the Grizzlies 6-16. The entire A side match was quite a back and forth affair, with the flamingos putting up the first points with a great penalty kick by Steve Rimmer. Each side continued to score on only penalty kicks (most of which were quite questionable penalties, but that is a different story). Late in the second half with the score 6-9 against the Flamingos, a penalty kick was awarded to the Flamingos. Terje Whitmore lined up for the mid range kick, and let loose with what looked like a miss, but somehow the ball hit the right post and the Flamingos let out a cheer, as it looked like it was going to go through. But as it dropped it hit the crossbar and bounced the wrong direction, what a heartbreaker. In the last few minutes Colorado Springs drove the ball down the field with several long runs and Flamingo missed tackles that culminated in a high tackle within 5 meters of the touch line, so the ref ruled it as a penalty try.

The B side match was also quite an even match, but despite having played the first half, I have no idea what the score was. I do know that Edward Sauer had his first try during this match, and demonstrated to Colorado Springs motorists what a Zulu is.

The Grizzlies hosted the Flamingos to a fine drink-up after the match as always. Man of the Match for the A side went to Steve Rimmer, and for the B side went to Edward Sauer. Congrats. It was also determined at the bar that your wife in labor is not a valid excuse for missing a match (or at least so it seemed after having a few beers).

The Flamingo’s first match of the spring season was played today at Greenbriar Park in Fort Collins against the defending ERRFU Div II champion, Denver Harlequins. The first half started strong for the Flamingos, as they kept pressure on the Quins, getting within meters of the try line three times in the first ten minutes. However with a missed tackle which seemed to be epidemic for the Flamingos, the Quins scored on a long run.

This was repeated several times during the first half, with the Flamingos consistantly maintaining possesion over several cycles, and then with mistakes and missed tackles, allowing the Harlequins to score again and again. Late in the first half after several “discussions” between Flamingo and Harlequin players, a Quin player made the mistake of starting a discussion in front of the referee, and was subsequently red carded. And the half ended with the score 31-3 in favor of the Harlequins.

In the second half, with a one man advantage, the Flamingos still failed to break through and score, however also held the Quins tryless in this half. The final score was Flamimingos 3, Harlequins 34.

Both the Harlequins (Jesters) and the Flamingos had a fairly deep bench, so the B side game consisted of mostly fresh legs. This match was quite a bit closer, with the Flamingos taking a 2 try early lead, but scoring was for the most part back and forth. In the last 5 minutes, with the Flamingos up by 2 points, the Jesters where able to put a penalty kick through, placing themselves up by 1. Soon after the kick, however the same problem that plagued the Flamingo’s A side struck. A missed tackle and long run put the score at 28-20. With very little time left, a demoralized Flamingo side allowed another long drive ending the match at 33-20 in favor of the Jesters.

The Flamingo’s Man of the Match for the A game was Sean Hadaway, and for the B side was Steve Rimmer.

On another note, Congratulations and best wishes to Larry Smith and his family on the adoption of their baby boy!!!

Jason Fegel realized that he has not been keeping the news page up to date, and received much verbal harrasment recently because of it. He said to this reporter: “Bite me, I’ll get to it when I have time.”, and then mentioned that he will begin diligently entering current events onto the website. This reporter, for one, is not convinced that he will actually keep it updated, so a summary of events since the last update will be included.

The Spring season ended as expected, with the core players starting to work well together. This fact was demonstrated by the Flamingos winning all their matches during Maggotfest. Despite obvious crowd support, the Flamingos, partying and playing as Oompa Lumpas did not receive the coveted Most honored side at Maggotfest. The club is very optimistic about the upcoming Fall season.

Other exciting occurances were the Cowpie tournament in Steamboat springs and the Luau hosted by the Dickens. The team did not do as well at Cowpie, but it definately gave them a heads up as what skills need to be improved. The biggest success of the tournament was the introduction of two brand new nicknames for two club members. Say hello to WouldBe and TwentyTwo. The Luau also was a success, with some highlights being an extreme badmitten tournament, and co-ed scrumming in the kitchen.

Preseason training has for the most part been quite successful, with great numbers of new players checking out the great game of rugby. With only two more practices before our first match, its time to turn up the energy and get ready to have a great season. The first match is against the Harlequins at Greenbriar park in Fort Collins on August 7th.