Our U19 Select-side Girls are having a fundraising event to help offset a portion of the cost for their upcoming trip to compete at the Oregon Tournament - June 28th - 29th!

• When: May 11, 2008
• Time: 9am-12pm
• Where: Fridley VFW Post #363 - 1040 Osborne Rd, Fridley, MN 55432
• Cost: $8 (tickets also available at the door)

All you can eat pancakes plus a serving of scrambled eggs, choice of sausage or bacon and choice of coffee, juice or milk. The Select-side Girls will be your greeters and servers.

Come on out and support the U19 Girls!
Additional donations welcome.

• The Banshees goal for 2008 was to get back to D2, which they accomplished on Saturday with a Midwest Championship semi-final win over Cedar Rapids. Thus guaranteed, the bar was raised and they had a chance for a trip to the National Championship Tournament, needing to beat the Michiana Moose in the finals on Sunday. Alas, it was not to be. The Banshees fell behind early, as seems to be their habit in the big games this year, but played true to form in mounting a furious comeback. After trailing 27-15, the Eastsiders pressed the attack and earned a 29-27 lead. With time running out, Michiana put the pressure back on the Banshees. With their backs against their own try line the Banshees held, but then gave away a penalty while trying to steal possession, and Michiana slotted the kick with no time left to secure the win.
• On Saturday the Banshees trailed Cedar Rapids at the half by 10-7, but on a blustery, Chicago day used the wind in the second 40 to great advantage and post a convincing 26-10 win over the Headhunters. One the line before kick off, a brawny Iowa prop noting the smaller Eastside pack, asked,  "Where are their forwards?"   He soon found out that size isn't everything as the Banshees tight 5 proved critical in deciding the outcome as they punished the larger Cedar Rapids pack.  Banshees Coach Sam Robinson had some strong words of encouragement at the half that the club took to heart and came out roaring. The pack secured possession after possession and the backs started making things happen, both with timely tactical kicking and then dynamic running as they found gaps and broke free for two long tries.
• Come Fall the Banshees will be back playing a D2 Schedule, which is very good for the Banshees and also for Minnesota rugby.

• The University of Minnesota men played Penn State University in the first round. PSU was MARFU champion and ranked #8 in the country by eRugbyNews. The "U" came in as the Midwest's #2 seed and ranked at #19. Needless to say, PSU was heavily favored in the match. The Gophers opened the scoring with a try from center Lucas Thiem. Penn State answered with an unconverted try. Minnesota then struck again when No. 8 Ed Long scored to give Minnesota a 14-5 lead. Then wing Drew Kampf put the Gophers up 19-8 with yet another Minnesota try and it started looking like Minnesota could pull off a huge upset. It was not to be, however, as PSU got rolling in the second half. Two quick tries and goo goalkicking soon had Penn State in the lead at 23-19. The "U" would get one more score, but they couldn't slow Penn State who went on to notch the 52-24 win.
• On day two the "U" faced #5 ranked Utah. After the seond half try-fest that PSU had put up on the Minnesota XV, optimism for a Gopher win was not high among the maroon and gold faithful. The Gophers proved resilient, however, and more than up to the task as they came back with a fury againsgt highly considered Utah. The "U" used the wind to great effect in the first half to open a lead and this day kept the pressure on for the full 80 to score a very satisfying (and convincing) upset victory over Utah by a final of 31-18.
• Other Midwest teams did not do so well -- Bowling Green lost twice (to Kutztown 27-23 and to Air Force 45-34); the UNI women also lost twice (to Stanford 95-5 and to Colorado 17-0), Indiana lost to Chico State 36-10 Saturday but then defeated Florida on Sunday; and Michigan men (D2) lost 48-13, to Radford on Saturday and then won on Sunday.
• All of the scores are posted on the USA Rugby web site: www.usarugby.org

• The University of Minnesota-DULUTH women took on Western Washington University in their D2 match. ERugbyNews had Duluth as the slight favorite, and they didn't disappoint, doubling up on WWU 34-17 to put Duluth through to the D2 semi-finals on Sunday. They faced Claremont and fell behind 14-0, which was the score at half. Duluth took the second half kick-off straigh up the field and put in their first try. Decidedly inspired by the quick start, Duluth kept up the pressure and posted 32 unanswered points to win going away by 32-14.
• Duluth is now through to the Championship Match which will be played May 3rd at Stanford University!

• The Minnesota Men's College All Stars finished 3rd in tier II. They lost to Ohio 38-5 and then defeated a combined Michigan/Indiana side by 62-0. In tier I Wisconsin crushed Iowa by 67-0 to take first. All the scores can be found here>>>
• The Minnesota Women's U23 All Stars finished 2nd in tier I. They shut-out Ohio 15-0 and then lost to Iowa by 29-32. All the scores can be found here>>>

• The Midwest Rugby Union currently has two good web sites. The official site is at www.midwestrugbyunion.org. It's still a work in progress, but shows some promise. It's a bit difficult to find your way around at first, but once you get the hang of it it's not so bad, just a little different. It allows for anyone who signs up to post information, including scores and news bits, which is kinda cool; but if they depend on that for the news it's going to be very spotty reporting, at best. For example there's not even a sniff of informatioin on the site of the recent Midwest All Star Championships. To use all of the features, including the ability to post information, requires signing-up, which means remembering another username and password (I only mention this because I did sign-up a month ago and bugger if I can remember my user name today!) As someone who's had something to do with rugby web sites for a very long time, I can tell ya if you rely on others to report information to you, much will be missed. In the end, you have to go out and get it. I wish it weren't so, but it very much is.
• Which brings us to the second Midwest Rugby site. Shawn McKinney used to maintain the official Midwest site and still is posting on www.midwestrugby.org (Midwest Rugby Territorial News). It has easy to use links across the top (including links to all of the Midwest LAUs), and down the side. It, too, seems a work in progress as some of the links are not working (I hate that). But i f you want to know about upcoming events or see results of recent events, this is a much better site to visit. While McKinney does have people reporting results to him, he also is very good about reaching out to get the information he wants (and the rugby community needs!) This is the place I found the LAU All Star Tournament results. The site still reads more like an event list than a "news" site, but it's very thorough and that's what's important.
• If you're tracking Midwest Rugby news and events, be sure to visit and bookmark both of these sites today!
• For Rugby News, my favorite is www.erugbynews.com, which used to be GoffOnRugby. The chief writer is still Alex Goff, and he's quite prolific. He's now supported by an excellent staff, that includes the people from Rugby Magazine, as both are now owned by the same group. There's daily news including a lot of excellent Midwest coverage. ERugbyNews also covers all manner and level of rugby, and covers this broad range amazingly well. You'll find you don't always agree with what they have to say, but that's part of the fun, isn't it! ERugbyNews is well worth the price. The other rugby news site of note is American Rugby News www.americanrugbynews.com. The writing is strong, but there's not as much of it. The focus here is on upper level rugby and you won't find much, if anything, below D1. AmericanRugbyNews in the past hasn't given great coverage to women's rugby, either, although a glance at the page today indicates maybe that is changing. It's a free site and defintily worth a visit. The fact that both of these rugby news web sites are succeeding is good news, indeed.

St. Paul Jazz Pigs RFC Pig Roast & Social

May 10th , 2008

Minnesota 7's Midwest Qualifier

July 12th, 2008

Midsummer's Night Rugby Tournament

July 26th, 2008