The Huns were able to assemble about 20-22 guys this weekend and travel out to San Diego for the 25th Annual OMBAC tournament. It was a good and fun tournament, with the exception of the "Kern County Debacle" (read below) and the lack of an organized party on Saturday night. Fortunately, San Diego and OMBAC, provided us with plenty of activity. We were unable to wait for the conclusion of the Premier final between OMBAC and the Kansas City Blues. In the Collegiant final, Cal Berkely narrowly defeated Cal Davis in a very exciting match by the score of 17-15.

Below are recap's of the Huns matches.

Del Mar 12
Huns 15

We were quickly able to move the ball into Del Mar's end of the field with solid rucking and mauling in the beginning of the first half. After a rolling maul which moved the ball within 5 meters of the try line in the opening minutes, Del Mar was able to get the ball loose and take it the length of field for a try, to take the lead 7-0 after the successful conversion. The Huns were quickly able to again move the ball inside the opponents 22 as we were able to pretty much dominate the set play and the mauls and rucks. After a few penalties deep in Del Mar territory, the Huns quickly took the lead by the score of 9-7 on three penalty kicks.

In the second half, our forwards again helped keep the ball in Del Mar's end of the field with solid loose play. However Del Mar was able to score again on another long run coming off a rare loose ball win by the Del Mar forwards. The ensuing conversion was no good and Del Mar regained the lead by the score of 12-9 with about 10 minutes in the half. From there the Huns forwards again took over with steady pressure on the opponents try line. Despite taking a rolling maul approximately 15 meters and driving the Del Mar forwards into their own goal post, the referee, blew the play up and gave the Huns a 5 meter scrum instead of awarding us the try. Those final 10 minutes were played exclusively inside Del Mar's own 22 with the Huns scoring in the closing minutes of the game off a won scrum down by the Huns forwards.

Camp Pendleton 17
Huns 5

This game was won by Pendleton, in all phases of the game. The Huns simply played a lousy game, giving tries on costly errors by both the forwards and the backs... However, to give credit where it is due, the strong and fit Marine team, played a solid game against us. Each of Pendleton's three scores, came on good movement by the opposing back line with corresponding lack of support on the part of the Huns.

The Huns finally scored late in the game with about 8 minutes left. Graham Watson, took the loose ball from the won ruck, and kicked it over a shallow and flat Pendleton back line. Art Acuna and David Pelton then made it past the opponents and beat them to the corner with Pelton taking the pass from Acuna and diving in for the score. The kick stayed wide left and the final score ended up being 17-5.

Kern County (Bakersfield) 0
Huns 17

Huns forwards engage with Kern County... Referree looks to better times...

This game ideally should have never been played, however I'm certainly glad it was... We were originally supposed to play Kern County at 8am Saturday morning. However Kern, didn't show up on time and ended up forfeiting the match to the Huns. Later that morning, when they eventually did show, they asked for the game to be rescheduled and won the ruling from the tournament directors for a 2:30 game time. Originally, our last match was to be the Pendleton match at 1pm. When 2:30 rolled around, we were informed that the match was delayed for an hour due to a miscalculation by the tournament admin's... Once 3:30 came around, we were told that there were going to be further delays due to more scheduling problems. Upon notifying the officials that there was an open pitch to play on, we finally got underway around 4pm, after officials had to drag an inebriated and apparently annoyed referee out of the beer tent to ref our match. The fun didn't stop there...

Kern County, came into the game swinging. It was an ugly match from the beginning due to numerous hazardous play, obstruction, and offsides penalties to the Kern County team. 10 minutes into the match, Kern County was penalized for obstruction deep in their side of the field and we elected to try for a 3 point kick. Prior to kicking the ball, Graham Watson, approached the referree and politely asked the referee to get a hold of the game or someone was going to get seriously injured. The referee, immediately threw up his arms, blew the whistle and awarded Kern County a 5-0 victory and a forfeit by THE HUNS!!! Despite several members of the Huns, namely myself and Graham Watson, losing our temper, we were able to get a new referree and were allowed to finish the match after a 30 minute delay. However, due to the commotion, several Huns and Kern County players took it upon themselves to adjourn to the beer tent for a few attitude adjustments. Furthermore, thanks to Doug Forte, and his courageous words to inspire the Huns into taking the pitch, the game would go on... Doug, walked out into the middle of the pitch and yelled something like... "WE CAME TO SAN DIEGO TO PLAY RUGBY DAMMITT! NOW GET YOUR ASSES OUT HERE AND PLAY SOME FUCKING RUGBY".... I cried and took the field, I was so inspired... Needless to say, we had to whore some positions out. We brought former Hun and Prop, Chris Dahlberg, in and let him play Wing and were finally able to get a full 15 man side assembled in the process... In addition to Chris, we had Kevin Beadle, Super Dave Weurch, David Pelton, Joel Richardson, Doug Forte and Frank Erk playing in the back line... Fanie Froneman, got his first start at Scrum Half... Not only had most of these guys not played with each other, most of them didn't know each other...

SO! after finally getting underway, both sides agreed that there was about 8 minutes left in the 1st half to play and the Huns immediately forced the ball into the try zone coming off another successful ruck by the forwards. Hooker, Ed Benson, took the ball in beneath the posts to give the Huns a 5-0 lead. The kick was good and the Huns lead by the score of 7-0.

In the second half, the Huns continued to play well against Kern County. We had solid movement in the back line and good loose play by the forwards. We got our second score on a nice feed from David Pelton, to WING, Chris Dahlberg, who scored a diving try in the corner after about 20 meters. We would eventually score again by keeping the ball in Kern County's end of the field for much of the second half... can't remember who scored the last try though...

AND, it would have been a Double-Dahlberg scoring day, had Shawn Rutledge properly toed through a penalty play early in the first half, which I scored on from about 5 meters... but the Ref said no... the first ref that is...

Two tries went un-converted and the Huns won by the score of 17-0. Kern County's captain said after the match jokingly, "I guess we'll go ahead and give you the forfeit if you want"...

Arlington 25
Huns 3

This match was played at 9am on Sunday morning and Arlington came to play... Despite playing well in the first half we fell early to the Mavericks by the score of 10-3. Like the Pendleton match, Arlington scored on runs of 50 meters or more on nearly all of their tries. And, like the Pendleton match, Arlington simply outplayed us, often taking advantage of breakdowns in our back line to score on those long runs...

Last Modified: 10/16/03