Chicago Riot 19 Lincoln Park RFC 21 (Half-time: 7-14)

Not every fixture arrives with weeks of planning behind it, and this one arrived with barely a day's notice at all. When Riot's scheduled opponents pulled out, it was Lincoln Park who stepped in to save the afternoon, an act of good neighbourliness that meant the call for players went out on Friday evening rather than the usual run of preparation. What resulted was a hurriedly assembled Park side, patched together from whoever could make it, several of them making their debut and several more finding themselves in shirts they do not normally wear. That a team put together in such fashion should come away with the win, in a match shortened to accommodate the short notice, says a good deal about the depth quietly building at the club.

Nowhere was the improvisation more visible than in the back row, where Callovini — a winger by trade and reputation — was pressed into service as a scavenging wing-forward, a sight rare enough to draw comment from anyone who has watched him patrol the touchline in more conventional fashion. He was far from the only one asked to learn a new job on the fly, but he was perhaps the most eye-catching example of a side simply getting on with it.

A bright start, undone by the final pass

Park had the better of the opening exchanges, twice working their way to the Riot line only to see the chance undone by a knock-on at the crucial moment — the kind of small errors that a settled, well-drilled side might have avoided, but entirely forgivable in a team fielding so many new combinations for the first time. The pressure was real even if the points did not immediately follow.

Irazusdabarrena announces himself

Among the debutants, it was the new Spanish winger Irazusdabarrena who caught the eye most. Whatever had impressed the coaching staff in training was there for all to see in the match itself — composure under the high ball that belied his lack of experience in Park colours, and a clever change of footwork that repeatedly bought him half a yard of space behind the defensive line. It was the sort of debut that suggests he will not be a stranger to the team sheet for long.

Park's first try, and the one that levelled the scores, came from a well-timed inside pass out of the same wing channel, Irazusdabarrena sending Olander through a gap with precisely the sort of delivery that turns pressure into points.

Loomis and Suladze set the physical tone

If the backs supplied the invention, it was Loomis and Suladze — lock and No. 8 respectively — who supplied the engine room. Both put in a series of low, chop tackles that repeatedly halted Riot's momentum before it could build, and it was from exactly this kind of defensive work that Park's best try of the day was born. A superb counter-ruck from Suladze won back possession that looked lost, and from there Loomis simply took off, covering a full seventy yards to score under the posts — a remarkable finish for a forward, and one that will live longer in the memory than most of the afternoon's other scores.

Loomis was not finished. Early in the second half he added a second, this time finishing off a sniping break from West, who had one of the more unusual afternoons of anyone on the pitch — spending the bulk of the match at flanker before reverting, late on, to his more accustomed post at scrumhalf to help close the game out. Versatility, on a day when the entire selection was built on it, seemed almost fitting.

A narrow finish

Riot did not go quietly, finding two second-half tries of their own to make a real contest of the closing stages. But it was the position of their final score, out wide on the left touchline, that ultimately settled the outcome — the conversion from the difficult angle drifting just short, and with it any hope of snatching the game at the death.

Alcantara channels the Mighty Mouse

Elsewhere among the improvised selection, one performance in particular stood out. Filling in at loosehead prop, Alcantara did his best impression of Ian "Mighty Mouse" McLauchlan, putting in a shift well beyond what his usual position on the team sheet might suggest — all effort and no complaint, exactly what an afternoon like this demanded.

The verdict

A patched-together Lincoln Park side, assembled at less than 48 hours' notice, would have been forgiven a difficult afternoon. Instead they left with a win, several promising debuts, and the sort of warm-up that a club could not have scripted better. Sterner tests await when the league campaign begins in earnest next week, but on this evidence, there is plenty for the coaches to be encouraged by.

Chicago Riot 24 Lincoln Park RFC 76 (Half-time: 7-45)

There are days when a rugby team simply has the run of the sun, and this was one of them. Under a cloudless Chicago sky, with the kind of heat that saps a lesser side by the hour mark, Lincoln Park RFC instead seemed to feed off it, running in eleven tries and putting seventy-six points on a Riot outfit who, in fairness, competed with real heart but could not live with the visitors' pace of thought or foot.

The scoreline will draw the eye, and rightly so, but the manner of it told the fuller story. This was not a case of one dominant unit doing the damage while the rest coasted. It was a collective performance, forwards laying a platform that rarely creaked and backs finishing with a ruthlessness that, by the closing quarter, had the look of a training exercise rather than a contest.

Laux leads the way

If one man's name will linger longest in the retelling, it is Jake Laux's. His hat-trick was built less on individual brilliance in isolation than on an instinct for exactly where the game was breaking down field, and getting there first. Time and again it was Laux arriving as first support to a half-break, picking cleanly and driving through the tiring shoulders of Riot defenders who simply had no second effort left to give. His second was the pick of the three, and it came from the unlikeliest of starts — straight from the restart. Dave Lepp gathered the kickoff and, rather than settle for the easy carry, found Laux in space with a pass that sliced fifty yards clean through the Riot line. There was no catching him after that.

Jahner's boot and a rock-solid lineout

Behind the pack, Jahner's afternoon will please the coaching staff as much as any of the tries. His lineout ball was a platform in itself — clean, reliable possession that let Lincoln Park play with the tempo they wanted rather than the tempo Riot would have preferred to impose. With the boot he was similarly excellent, missing only one conversion all day, and his lone blemish came on a penalty attempt from inside his own half — hardly a fair test of a kicking game that otherwise barely faltered.

Thomas turns provider as well as finisher

Out wide, Thomas gave Riot's defence problems it never quite solved. Two tries of his own came from a predatory reading of loose ball and disorganised defensive lines, the mark of a winger who scents opportunity before it has fully arrived. But his most telling contribution may have been the one that did not end in his own try — a searing break that ate up half the field and drew the last defender, allowing Finnegan support underneath. Finnegan was on hand to finish, following Thomas's burst the length of the pitch and forcing his way over from close range — a try that owed everything to the winger's vision but was finished off with real purpose, symptomatic of an afternoon in which Riot's line was under almost constant siege.

Robinson impresses at hooker

Deputising at hooker, Robinson put in the sort of shift that will not have gone unnoticed. His throwing was accurate for the most part, no small thing in the heat, and he added two tries from close range to boot. The first arrived off the back of a driving Lincoln Park maul, Robinson peeling away at just the right moment to finish what the pack had started — a try built entirely in the tight exchanges rather than the wide ones, and a reminder that this was a victory constructed as much up front as out back.

Set-piece dominance and Chrisos's boot

Indeed, it was the set-piece stability that underpinned everything else. All afternoon the Lincoln Park scrum and lineout gave the backline quick, front-foot ball, and that platform rarely wavered even as the temperature climbed. Chrisos was central to turning defence into attack, his tactical kicking repeatedly relieving pressure whenever Riot did manage to string phases together, pinning them back and forcing them to play from deep — exactly where Lincoln Park wanted them.

Bench adds to the tally

Nor did the introduction of fresh legs slow the visitors down. If anything, the bench arrived with extra urgency, adding impetus in the closing stages when a lesser side might have eased off with the scoreboard already emphatic. Lincoln Park simply never let up, and Riot were given no respite in which to find a foothold.

Riot's 12 stands almost alone

For the home side, credit is due chiefly to their number 12, who was virtually a one-man rearguard. His three tries were the sum total of a genuine attacking threat, but it was in defence that he caught the eye most — a series of last-ditch cover tackles that, on another day, might have been remembered as a man single-handedly keeping the score respectable. As it was, even he could not stem the tide alone, and Riot's afternoon became one of admirable resistance rather than any real prospect of an upset.

The verdict

Seventy-six points, eleven tries, and barely a phase of the second half in doubt — this was as complete a start to the season as Lincoln Park could have hoped for. Forwards front-footed, backs clinical, and a bench that refused to let standards drop: on this evidence, sides across the league will have taken note.