NOOGA RUGBY

Nooga Red traveled this past Saturday to Hopkinsville, KY for the first time to take on the Hopkinsville Headhunters. This was our second time facing Hopkinsville, having played them at home last fall. It was a sunny, windy Kentucky afternoon at kickoff at Ruff Park. The game started at somewhat of a frenetic pace with early penalties and mental lapses limiting Nooga’s scoring opportunities. But we gradually started asserting some dominance in the set pieces and with our conditioning. And pretty soon afterwards center Tom Snow scored off of a crash ball line break. The scoring gates opened a little bit wider as Wing Nick Bateman scored two tries in the first half off of kick chases. Opposite winger Steven Jones continued his scoring streak by finding some space out wide and scoring another try. We would score one more time in the first half through flyhalf Luke Collins who scored off of a nice dummy run. He was also doing his job as a good #10 and distributing the ball well, assisting in 4 of our 8 tries. Score at half time was 33-0.

The second half began with another try through #12 Tom Snow. With the score 40-0, substitutions were made and over the subsequent 15 minutes we were able to bring on our entire bench and allow for everyone to enjoy some playing time. The final two scores came through Daniel Tardy and Kirk Neubauer. Tardy benefiting from a pass off of prop Ethan Winel and Neubauer scoring from an offload from substitute #10 Jeff Bollig. Fullback Wiley Davis had a great day at the tee and added 14 points via 7/8 conversion kicking.

Man of the Match as chosen by Hopkinsville went to….Tom Snow! Congratulations!

We were happy with the win but not satisfied as we missed several scoring opportunities through lack of focus. Something we will have to work on between now and our next game against Nashville RFC on 2/23, which will be our Grand Opening at Montague Park! We would love to see you there!