Winging It

Beantown rugby is ridiculous. Ridiculous! They are currently #3 in the country and have a historical record of 639-61. I don't think I've ever been on a team, for any sport, that's so used to winning, and playing at such a high level of competition.

We have 40-50 players and 3-5 coaches at every practice. In a lot of ways it's similar to the Furies with having a huge team and very knowledgeable coaches. I'm definitely glad I went to Beantown instead of another local team which wouldn't have had the same depth.

We have three sides

• A, who plays in Women's Premier League against the Furies and 6 other teams across the country
  
• B side, who generally plays WPL opponents' B sides or other senior women or collegiate teams
• C side, which is playing in Div III and is a new team this year

I've been playing with C side which is a perfect fit for my level of skill, fitness, and time commitment this year. We had a nice win over Furies C on 9/12 and Middlesex on 9/19.

But yesterday, finally, Saturday was a Rugby Day again! We've been playing matches on Sunday because WPL plays on Sundays, but Saturday matches are a rugby tradition and having a recovery day is very helpful. I started off playing scrumhalf for Beantown, but I had muscle spasms in my back on the 19th and had to come out early, and problems persisted throughout the week, so I was switched to wing and scheduled to play only a half against Amoskeag.

We took the field, the forwards drove the ball up the field, sucking in the defense, and then the ball spun out to the backs. My outside center made a great cut and passed it to me just steps outside the try zone, and I scored! Only 48 seconds into the game! And that was pretty much how the rest of the game went, with me scoring another try, the outside center earning a hat trick, and many other people scoring. It was so fun. I feel like every time I go back to playing wing, I have this realization that it's an incredibly fun position.