By Zach Waltz
Assistant Sports Editor
The men’s rugby team is prepared for its home match against Fordham at Saturday after an unexpected bye week after their match against the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy was canceled last Saturday by he government shutdown.
Head Coach Clarence Picard said Fordham has made vast improvements from last season.
“Fordham was a really young team last year,” Picard said. “They didn’t have the best record, but they remarkably played every match really close. They got a ton of bonus points. We went down there and played them, 21-17 (Bonnies) was the final score.”
Picard said Fordham is an inexperienced team that is only getting better with time.
“They had a lot of good, young players, and you could tell that they were close to putting it together,” Picard said. “If you look at the results this year, they picked up a few more wins. They’re continuing to be more competitive. I think that’s just a testament to what they’re doing. They’ve been successful recruiting and bringing in good young players.”
Senior scrumhalf Justin Walker said the team is trying to keep the mental element of the game in-tune.
“Fordham’s a really tough team,” Walker said. “When we went down there, they came out ready to play. They have decent size and some kids that can play. So we’re just trying to be mentally sharp this week and make sure that we’re really tight on everything.”
Picard said the unexpected weekend off helped the team because they trained hard all week and didn’t have the physical strains of a game over the weekend.
“I guess that was a positive,” Picard said. “Better than a true bye week because for most of the week, we planned on playing. I think that helped because we had to be really serious all the way through Thursday.”
Picard said the younger players on the team got some extra focus this past week, which will help elevate the team’s play as a whole.
“One thing we were able to do last week is focus more attention on our younger guys,” Picard said. “Hopefully, it has us in a good spot not where the better competition we get in practice, the better we’ll do on the weekend.”
Walker said the team wasn’t fazed by the last-minute decision to cancel the game because they continued to practice normally.
“It helped because we did get the practice in, and we really weren’t worried about it with the shutdown and everything,” he said. “We were just trying to focus on doing what we had to do to get better. When we found out, we were like ‘whatever, at least we got better,’ and I think it help set us up for this week.”
Picard said there is a possibility that the bye week could deter the Bonnies from their winning ways. They might come into the game a little off since they haven’t played in two weeks, he said.
“We might be a little rusty having not played in a week, so one thing we need to do is just come out really hard,” Picard said. “Like we’ve been doing all year, focus on doing things right, and hopefully, we can shake off the rust quickly and have a good game.”
