It's been a week since the St. Patrick's Day rugby tournament in Savannah, Ga., and the hangovers have subsided while the bug bites still linger. I shall bravely soldier on and give all a rundown on America's second largest rugby tournament (www.savannahrugby.com) as well as the second largest St. Patrick's Day celebration.
Savannah is simply an excellent small city to visit, and it seems by the growing number of visitors each year as well as the population growth that many agree with me. It is one of America's most historic cities and has a definite small town atmosphere. I'd recommend a summer trip there with the kids if you're looking for ideas.....just bring plenty of bug spray!
On my way up from the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., area I stopped in for my yearly overnight buzz with Dave "Ongowa" Pirrung of the Jacksonville RFC. Dave lives in the Neptune Beach area (pretty hoppin') and is known by many as "Florida Dave" of the SFCA RFC (Speed Freak Clowns on Acid). He promises that one of these years he's putting down his tree surgeon stuff and heading north with me to partake of the tomfoolery but just is too busy playing Tarzan right now.
I got into Savannah Thursday afternoon and found the Marriott on the east end of the river already teeming with various fife & drum outfits from all over the U.S. practicing for the Friday parade. I was again the honorary old fart on a combo team called The Willing, most of whose players are either with or have played with the Belsize Park RFC of west London. This side won the premiere championship in the 2007 St. Pat's event over the Air Force, and I was invited along to be a sidelines nanny and buy a few rounds. I will speak more about BPRFC in a future separate post from this write up.
The team found its way in from the Savannah airport or by car from Atlanta's airport and after a welcoming round in the hotel we headed up the cobblestone/railway tracks that run along the river to a few bars. No play-by-play on the night's events here, except I found a piece of yellow and a piece of red posterboard and started giving red and yellow cards out when necessary. The yellow made the offender stand in the corner of the bar for five minutes and the red was a 10-minute penalty WITHOUT beer. Needless to say I was as popular as a spinster schoolmarm by the night's end.
This year's parade was held on Friday the 14th instead of the usual 17th because St. Pat's fell in the middle of Holy Week for the first time since the 1940s, and Savannah, as well as many other U.S. cities agreed to move the parade date (New York did not). The number of tournament entries definitely is affected by the parade date and this year approx 68 teams entered (compared to nearly 90 last year). The parade lasted four and a half hours, and I grabbed a window ledge perch by City Hall to watch and a few of my teammates wandered by with refreshments to keep me festive. BTW, City Hall is (quite fittingly) on BULL Street.
Everything was great all day and about 1:30 I saw the Savannah Shamrocks RFC march by, and I decided to jump off the ledge and join the parade. They had a float, I had a place on top to stand and I finished out the ride blessing the crowd. Oh Danny Boyyyyyyyyy..........
The Willing had an 8 am Saturday match vs. Metropolis, so some of the youngsters actually got in by midnight. I caught up with the Univ. of Central Florida girls team who were our cheering section last year, the "More Than Willing" and we were ready to go. We beat Metropolis (the MWRFU # 4 Div 1 seed) 17-5 in a very "dewy" game and at noon made a comeback on the Air Force Academy to steal a win also. Hence, we made the Sunday Premiere finals by 1pm and I set off for the 35+ matches at the nearby stadium field.
The Masters division at Savannah is still a work in progress. I spent a good amount of the weekend talking with tournament director John Schomburg and past tournament director Steve Keller about ways to make the early round games more competitive for the better teams and more fun for the uber-oldsters like the U of GA Blind Pigs, many of whom were at the first Savannah tourney in 1979! The two tournament directors promised that they will look into having separate 35+ and 45+ divisions as well as a 50+ match for all comers at the end of the day next year.
This year's six sides were the Cincy Greyhounds, Blind Pigs, Hilton Head Mullets, Old Thunder, Battock's Bombers (Air Force OBs) and TOXIC, which meant Thunderbolts, Old Yeller, X-Shamrocks In Cahoots. I picked up a few minutes w/Old Thunder guys (mostly Golden Isles & Thunderbolts) and hung out w/the Pigs who serenaded the crowd with their original UGA Rugby Anthem sung to the Marine Corps hymn. The Pigs bring out a handmade quilt of old UGA t-shirts to the tourney and are generally a great bunch to socialize with (as are all the Savannah Old Boys' entrants).
Quip of the weekend: TOXIC was beating the Blind Pigs big time and on a restart after another TOXIC try a Pig caught the ball about 9.99 yards from the 50 and the ref blew a penalty. I said from the sidelines, "Ref, sometimes ya gotta turn a blind eye to the Blind Pigs". Honorary pig-dom was bestowed upon me for the remainder of the day. Sooooooo-eeeeeeyyyyy!
The turning point of the entire tournament and big news of the weekend was the blackout that hit Savannah at 10:30 Sat night, just as the Riverfront area was filling up for the big party. The Willing were at the Chart House for a team dinner and as we were walking out to join the fun I saw on the TV a thunderstorm warning for the entire area. Less than five minutes later a transformer was hit and the entire city was in darkness until 8:15 the next morning. This not only kept the city and businesses from making thousands of dollars, but it got all of The Willing back to the Marriott by 2 am or so -- and most were near sober!
The old boys matches were played early and the Blind Pigs marched onto the field for their match with lawn chairs and coolers and won their game over Old Thunder via boat race and total team weight. The Sunday final saw the Cincinnati Greyhounds top the defending champs Hilton Head Mullets 24-10.
The Premiere Final was a rematch of 2007 with The Willing taking on the Air Force alumni squad, with many AF players flying in from as far away as Japan for revenge. The Air Force led from the start to the closing minutes by capitalizing on The Willing's mistakes. Bryan Wilmes intercepted a Willing pass and broke into the open field for the game's first try with Andy McQuade adding the conversion for a 7-0 edge early. Michael Hancock intercepted deep in Air Force territory and raced across the field, passing before he was tackled to winger Eric Walton for the try making it 12-0. After a try by The Willing's Brendan Walsh, the Air Force went up 17-5 on another miscue, as an attempt to keep a kick inbounds without any support led to a loose ball pounced upon by the speedy Walton, who scored the try seconds before halftime.
Despite our overwhelming sobriety, the first half was one Willing mistake after another and we huddled up for a pep talk from coach/organizer/benefactor/second row Cary Depel down 17-5. Somehow, we got better organized in the pack, stopped tossing the ball away and just generally said F*ck It and The Willing fought the Air Force with brute force, putting together drives and mauling the ball or using set scrums to get into the end zone. It wasn't pretty, but it was effective.
A pushover pack try followed immediately by a breakaway score off the restart made it 17-15 but the Air Force led 20-15 after McQuade made a key 3-point kick as the game wound down. However, there was enough time for The Willing to grind the ball in for the tying try at 20-20. In injury time winger Chris Copping skirted around the entire backline and dove into the corner as time expired to give The Willing a 25-20 victory. As we drank Guinness from the championship trophy, Cary Depel said to me, "Next year we don't show up sober".
Both sides later met at Murphy's Law for a few pints and 10 pizzas and generally had a good night. I chatted with Matt Godek and a few of the Battock Bombers and both sides agreed to meet again next year. Lookout!
Tags: Rugby St Patrick's Day
