Highland 7’s Champions

by nathansbrady20 | Jun 18, 2019 | Featured, Match Reports, News, Rugby

A new look Drinkin Park Squad traveled out to Aye-tasca for the annual Scottish Highland Games Tournament.  The bagpipes were blowing, as well as the weather, making for a wet and rainy day.  Due to some availability issues, the squad for this tournament rolled out 7 new faces when compared to last week’s Shipwreck roster.   

First up for the day was The Old Nags.  A high school “Old Boys” alumni team that showed great athleticism and skill.  The rain started coming down right at the kick off and turned what was looking to be a battle between the two teams’ speed into a defensive battle.  The Old Nags struck first, dotting down a score just a few minutes in, but Drinkin Park responded quickly when Pasta tied it up at 5s.  Baker followed through just a minute later, and with the a successful conversion it put Park up by 7.  The Nags kept on the attack and dotted down another try at the end of the half, but with a failed conversion Park held the lead.  The 2nd half was wet and sloppy and featured more set pieces than desired, with both sides trading knock ons.  Park’s defense held and squeaked out a 2 point victory to start the day.  12-10

Next was the Draconian Lawyers, the newly combined Chicago Dragons and Chicago Lawyers squad.  While athletic and ready to put in the hard work, Drinkin Park was disciplined and too much for the Lawyers to handle.  Ollie and Baker put Park up 10-0 in the first three minutes with Mike capping off the first half with a cheeky poke kick and run off of a dropped Draconian pass.  Park went into the half up 17-0.  Liam finished off the last score of the match just to start the half and then we settled in on defense to finish out the match up 22-0.

Baker and Togher single handedly ate up minutes on the clock with a failed 80 meter run, sapping their energy but the clock as well. 

The next opponent was the Woodsmen.  Drinkin Park met them in the Semi Finals the week before, and easily dispatched them by 40 points.  This Highland match was quite the opposite.  The Woodsmen struck first and were up 5-0 before Park had a true possession.  After the restart Bobby hit a perfect gap and finished off the run to even it up at 5 all.  Instead of playing a calm and focused defense, we chose the hard route and were caught out of sorts with players scrambling to catch up.   Even with the exhausting scramble defense, the Woodsmen were unable to capitalize on Park’s mistakes.   However, the few moments we had the ball, we found ways to put points on the board.  Baker found a seam in the fifth minute to bring the lead to 5.  A quick halftime regroup found Bean fighting back the ravages of time to put in two scores giving Park enough points to finish out the match.  The Woodsmen answered one of them but their time was slipping away.  Baker and Togher single handedly ate up minutes on the clock with a failed 80 meter run, sapping their energy but the clock as well.  The Woodsmen had a final, threatening, break away, but was quickly snuffed out by a crushing tackle from Luke Mechling and Bobby to close it out..  Park wins 20-10

Going 3-0 on the day and as top seed, Park was into the Final against a familiar Highland Games foe, the Krackens.  Kicking ourselves for failed discipline in earlier matches, Drinkin Park focused on doing the simple things right.  From the first whistle it was clear the demons from the earlier match were exorcised.  Our defensive efforts smothered anything the Krackens attempted, trapping them near the sidelines and forcing mistakes. Park put in four tries in quick succession going into the half up 28-0.  The strong defense led to quick strikes on offense with the whole team contributing.  Brian Burke finished off two runs after shedding a few tackles, Jordan, Liam, and Mike added to the score.  Bean pulled a tally in each stat line racking up a try, assists, and a conversion.  Togher showed off his generous nature and led the day with three assists in one match.  A full team effort on defense and offense ended with Park winning 55-0 over the talented Krackens.  

Trys: Liam (3), Baker (3), Bean (3), Mike (3), Bobby (2), Brian (2), Jordan (1), Pasta (1), Ollie (1)Conversions: Bean (2), Liam (2),  Togher (1)

Shipwreck 7’s

by nathansbrady20 | Jun 10, 2019 | Featured, Match Reports, News, Rugby

The Drinkin Park 7’s squad kicked off their tournament schedule this summer out at sunny Schiller Park for Shipwreck 7’s.  With a bench as deep as most 7’s rosters, the lightly practiced team was up against all the usual Chicago area suspects. 

The pool draw for the day was CRC Mens and Fox Valley. Fox Valley was up first and after a slow start, the team settled in and started putting together a few exploratory runs.  A scrum wide left forced Fox Valley tight on defense and after quality passing from Pasta and Erik, Liam was off to the races for a 60 meter try.  Timmy pinned his ears back twice and finished off long probing runs that Garwood capped with quality conversions.  In the end, Park wins 33-12.

Next up was the newly minted CRC Mens, a combination of a few local squads.  The legs were starting to loosen up in this match and the boys jumped out to an early lead scoring in the first 30 seconds of the match.  Try after try came from well over 30 meters out.  In addition to the punishing offense, the defense denied a rhythm to CRC; especially after Luke Kirby laid a crushing cutback hit.  CRC managed to squeak in a score as time was expiring to bring the final to 42-7.

This concluded the pool play for the day and Drinkin Park awaited their quarter final draw.  Coming out of pool play as the clear and away overall #1 seed, the team was up against Blaze A for the Quarters.  As expected the Blaze were well drilled and disciplined, but Drinkin Park’s speed and finesse was too much for the Lemont boys to handle.   By the final whistle, Park was cruising into the semis beating the Blaze by 40 points.
Due to a scheduling mix up Park played back to back, meeting the Woodsmen in the Semis.  With the short rest the adrenaline was still pumping and Park jumped out to an early lead and never stopped.  Liam led the way with a full hattrick while Timmy put together quite a few quality serpentine runs.  The bench added even more in the second half while the starting 7 were taking a rest with the finals were coming up next.  

The South Side Irish fielded a very young and athletic squad, the first real test for Park all day.  The Irish struck first going up 7 shortly after the start of the match, but a great connection from Garwood to Shawn switching back inside leveled it up.  Both defenses were applying pressure and causing sloppy ball with more scrums than we had the rest of the day.  The score stayed level until the final moment of the first half when Liam broke to the outside and put Park up a score.  Drinkin Park started the second half with momentary lapses of judgement, and before anyone knew it we were down two tries.  We maintained possession and had fought out a few long probing runs.  Erik almost broke one through but was caught 5 meters out.  The South Side bungled the line out though and Park regained possession swinging it out wide.  An unfortunate knock during a guaranteed score led to a scrum as time was nearing the end.  Garwood pounced on a sloppy ball to put park down 9 in the waning moments.  Unfortunately by the restart time was expired and Park walked away with 2nd place for Shipwreck 7s.
All in all an offensive day that saw us use our width effectively, but fatigue and momentary lapses of discipline caught us when it mattered most.  Drinkin Park regroups and heads into the Highland Games hungry for 1st.  

Try Scorers: Liam 7, Timmy 6, Shawn, 5, Garwood 4, Erik 3, O’Malley 2, Fran 2, Owen 1, Jordan 1

Conversions: Garwood 9, Liam 5, Erik 2, Owen 1

Defensive MVP: Jake Laux