Cal Rugby routs UCLA 66-12 to improve to 6-0

Head coach Jack Clark said that Cal is ahead of last year's schedule in rugby 15s training

The rise of the service academies (Army was the 2022 National Champions and Navy came from behind to edge Cal in the 2023 National Championship title match) is arguably a good development for collegiate rugby. Army and Navy could not deploy the controversial practice of offering degrees to older international semi-pro to jump-start their programs like Life University or Lindenwood. Nonetheless, Cal Rugby will look to return to its rightful place as the best in college rugby, seeking a first rugby 15s national championship since 2017.

Unlike most other sports, Cal Rugby essentially lost TWO full years to the COVID pandemic with the 2021 season being a brief, abbreviated three-match stint. For a game that requires a lot of camaraderie in passing and defense as much as athletic ability and physical power, Cal Rugby arguably was at a disadvantage to some of the programs that played a full season in 2021 even with the D1A Rugby Championship tournament canceled.

Enough time has passed since with the current upperclassmen having two full seasons of action rugby 15s, even if the rugby schedule remained somewhat fluid. There was no fall Rugby 7s season this past fall when Cal would have played in some regional West Coast tournaments including the PAC 7 that would air on the Pac-12 Networks. This may or may not have been related to the fall of the Pac-12 conference.

So far in the 2024 season, which started just under a month ago in Los Angeles with Rugby 15s action, Cal Rugby has again come out dominant. Golden Bears have a perfect 6-0 record with three of those being full regulation matches. The first three wins came at the season-opening Dennis Storer Classic with half-length (20-minute halves) matches.

Last Saturday, Cal earned their second victory over UCLA, registering nine tries in a road win that was never in doubt. At this juncture of the season, the Golden Bears’ true measuring stick is only the ideal of perfection.

“I thought we played well in patches,” Cal head coach Jack Clark said. “We had a pretty high turnover count today and we were [more] penalized for what we want to be. You won’t be perfect in those two areas, but other than that, I was pleased with the effort.”

”[With a slightly different fall preparation this season,] I think we might actually be slightly ahead in 15s of where we were [in seasons past]. We got a lot of 15s training time this fall.”

Against UCLA, Cal used a starting roster that included 8 of the same 15 players who started against Navy in the 2023 D1A Rugby National Championship match. Two more of those starters are on the current roster but one did not play (Alex Aguero) and another (Joe Kirsten) came in as a substitute. While almost all of the front row forwards and backs are the same, Cal Bears had two new flankers around a new Number-8 in the back row. Most importantly, Cal started a new fly-half (number 10) who is often the first player to get the ball to initiate offense in sophomore Rand Santos to replace the graduated Max Schumacher. In 2023, Santos was a rare freshman to crack the starting lineup but at a less important position.

https://twitter.com/CalVarsityRugby/status/1753859277830381760

Coach Clark insisted that his roster is still “in flux”. There is still some open competition for certain positions that will likely last as long as possible. The program will only get stronger from the constant internal competitions through the end of the season.

A full replay of Cal’s 66-12 win from Wallis Annenberg Stadium at UCLA is available on YouTube.

Eight different Cal Bears scored tries with junior Kealan O’Connell being perfect in converting all nine conversions (a few from tough angles) and a penalty kick to end the first half.

Golden Bears led 31-0 at the half. The two second-half tries conceded meant a new season high in points allowed (Cal had only allowed just 7 points in the previous 5 matches), but this was bound to happen with the schedule getting tougher.

A combination of great Cal play and possible weakness in the UCLA defense meant that a majority of tries were scored by attacking on the left side. One potential worrisome spot was the inability of Cal to dominate the scrums. This was arguably an issue for Cal in their split of two matches against St. Mary’s last year.

The victory does help Cal in its bid to return to the D1A Rugby championship tournament. Bears improve to 1-0 in conference play with a road match at Arizona next week and another road match at Utah the following week to decide the automatic bid for the PAC conference.

Nonetheless, the challenge will increase this weekend when Cal hosts BYU today (Saturday) at noon PT. This match will air on Pac-12 Bay Area.

Photo Credit: CalBears.com [RudyPics]

Cal Bears will travel to Army on March 2nd and host Navy on March 16th. The East Bay rivalry match with St. Mary’s will be hosted by the Gaels on March 23rd.

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Netflix’s latest bid to boost another popular international sport to the US Audience is the new sports documentary series Six Nations: Full Contact. Six Nations is the annual rugby competition between England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, and Italy. While this show does not quite have the behind-the-scene glamour of F1 (Drive to Survive), Tennis (Break Point), or Golf (Full Swing), it still has the usual sports drama of national teams playing for pride, the drama of young and old players fighting for playtime, and exciting rugby action (now I want to see players chip the ball to themselves on every play). Time will tell if this show will eventually help the sport of rugby in the US.

Of course, there are already efforts to monetize rugby in the US with the relatively new Major League Rugby trying to carve out a place in the crowded US pro sports landscape. Recent Cal alum Max Schumacher was the 2nd overall pick in the 2023 MLR Collegiate Draft and signed with the Houston SaberCats. Sam Golla was the 2022 MLR Collegiate Draft’s 1st overall pick, to the Dallas Jackals. Several other Cal Rugby alumni have also found their way onto Major League Rugby rosters.

With the retirement of two-time USA “Calympian” Danny Barrett last summer, Cal probably will not have a representative in the Paris 2024 Games on Team USA. Recent alum Sam Walsh did represent USA at the Pan Am Game last November, but Team USA purposely sent a younger team. Walsh being on the Rugby FC Los Angeles roster now rather than the USA roster for the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series may be telling of his chance to be an Olympian this cycle.

The sport of rugby is attempting to grow in the United States. Cal Rugby alumni will have more options to extend their playing careers beyond Witter Rugby Field if they choose. They also have that Cal degree to fall back on, of course.