This past weekend we traveled up to Wilmington, NC to take on Cape Fear. This was a very different team than we've seen in the past with UNC Wilmington's rugby team absorbing into the team after a "disagreement" with the college union. Fear was young, fast, and played great support rugby. Augusta did travel without four usual starters, which did not help, but I felt the team showed drastic improvements in the areas targeted last week in training. It was a good match and I honestly think the scoreline could have gone either way, the difference maker being Fear's deep bench and impressive support on a couple of long tries.
 
Final score 15-29.

This past weekend the Mad Dogs traveled to Charleston on a wet and rainy day. The weather was good for rugby; the pitch at the Citadel was in good condition, the temperature was perfect, and the rain wasn't completely out of control. The Mad Dogs showed signs of development, but also showed lack of discipline at times leading to their demise as Charleston's always accurate kicker slotted two penalties and a conversion to lead the home team to an 18-5 win over the Mad Dogs. Augusta continues it's search for team identity and I personally believe we mad strides toward that goal as our defense was better and loose play was drastically improved over last week. With no reason to hang our heads after losing to an accomplished Outlaws team, Augusta heads to Cape Fear next week to try and rediscover the winning tradition.

On Saturday, Charlotte's Division 2 club visited Augusta for the first time in this Mad Dog's playing career (over a decade now). Both teams had strong numbers for the uncharacteristically warm February day. The pitch at the polo fields was long and wide, promising some exciting plays out wide. It was a tough, physical match by both sides. The Mad Dogs allowed 4 tries and a penalty to Charlotte but answered with 4 converted tries of their own and squeaked out a 28-25 victory. Overall, this is a good start to the season and with only minor adjustments to make, expectations are high for Augusta this matrix season.
 

Spring Practice Begins Tuesday Jan. 6

• Practices are Tuesday and Thursday 6:30 pm @ Lake Olmstead field. ( Just up from Greenjacket Stadium)
• Saturday ( Kicking Practice )  TBA
• Tell your friends to join in our fun

                               Coach Rahn

My thanks for the brave souls both male and female who braved weather akin to Scotlands' for their first practice with me. Perfect weather ..rainy but not too cold set the stage. Kudo's to Medium Nick, Jenifer, Julie ,Ashley and a furie yet to be named for setting up their square underwater.  Practice went well overall with no injuries and a few taking home the greater understanding of Rugby. Much work is still needed in order to dominate but tonight was a good start. In fact , I could not have invisioned a better one.
  As I sit sipping ..or sucking down my Belhaven , My mind skips to the ones who braved the elements and conquered their fears of rain. Yep...water from above. Not even cold yet.  Ok , everyone has plenty of time to  set things right. Simply recruit 3 new ruggers and you will be asponged.
   One last thought as the night slipps on.... Attack...Attack...Attack...Fast
                                                 Coach Rahn

  Greetings from the Coach ,
   This Thursday, December 11, 2008 I am to begin coaching . I want to first thank all of the players and player coaches for doing a good job this past Fall season. It is a very difficult job to coach and play. Kudos to those who met the challange. I hope to act more as a coordinator than as what many might expect from a coach. I am a player centered coach and thus much of the responsibility of this season lies on you, the players , shoulders. Like I tell my kids...I'm not your Mama.  I expect alot from you...you are all adults...you all want to play and you all want to win. I will help you to achieve the results that you seek. I can make you better, faster, stronger. But you have to take resposibility for yourself. 
   I will begin as your coach this Thursday...Dec.11. I expect to see all of you who want to win this season at practice. One day a week until closer to the season start is not too much to expect.  As the new guy I have no preconcieved notions of who has what position or even if you may or may not be a starter...SHOW ME. Players who show for practice naturally will have more "favor" than those I don't know.
You  have the ability to go well into the play-offs and a good chance to get to the finals.  This team can beat all of the other teams that I've seen lately. There are only a few things that we need to really work on until they are second nature. Once that done...watch out. You are a team of 15 RUGGERS. Not 2 props, 1 hooker, 2 locks,.... You are ALL RUGGERS.....This is different than football. Get football out of your heads. ALL RUGGERS   RUCK     ALL RUGGERS  MAUL  ALL RUGGERS  RUN, PASS, KICK, SCORE. No one is just a flanker or scrum half ...YOU are ALL RUGGERS and by playing like it you will WIN.
  One of the biggest concepts that I see that needs to be stressed is Quickness. Fast rucks and mauls...get the ball going before giving the opponents a chance to get set up and organized. You need to ATTACK>>>>ATTACK>>>>>ATTACK>>>>>FAST>>>>FAST>>>FAST . When you came the closest to this you beat UGA and Ashville.  When this becomes second nature you will dominate.
  Some of you have wondered why I just came out of the woodwork. I played several seasons in the 70's and 80's. This was while I was in college and also married. I greatly enjoyed playing but school started getting tougher. I wanted to get into dental school and had to keep good grades. Also, being a newly wed I needed to devote some of my few free hours to my bride. So rugby had to be cut out. It must have helped because I've been a dentist for over 20 years now and just celebrated my 29 wedding anniversary with my bride. By the time I got out of dental school we were having kids ... so still no Rugby.  This past fall I was invited as an Old Boy to come to the get together for the fall season. I took my oldest son Ron , who has since fallen in love with the sport. At that time it was stated that Augusta had no coach and also that Rugby was getting started in the local high schools. I really didn't think much of it at the time but as days passed I found myself thinking more and more of coaching. I have always enjoyed coaching and now was my chance to get back into it in my favorite sport. I am now accredited in several different areas to coach.  I had been asking Bill Welsh about coaching high school rugby . A couple days later members of Augusta RFC asked me if I would like to coach them.. Well..YES! So here I am about to begin what I consider a long term relationship. I am looking forward to many great winning seasons with a bunch of great guys.
  Now for what I expect from you...the team. I expect you to treat all players as brothers. I expect you to treat me with respect. I expect you to treat all others in a way that will give respect to the team and your brothers and your coach. And I expect you to police each other....I'm not yo Mama!
  Lastly, besides coordinating/coaching I plan on:

•       Having each match videoed and having copies available 
•       Having photographers at each match to document back when you were good looking
•       Having a med kit at each practice and match
•       Having a trained trainer or emt or MD at each match
•       Recruiting for our club
•       Continuing my learning on Rugby and coaching
•       A bunch of other stuff I can't remember right now

                                        Merry Mauling and Happy Rucking,
                                                           Coach Rahn
     

Augusta Ruggers and supporters:
The new website has been live now for a little over 4 months and I hope everyone is getting a feel for it.  A few supporters, players, and old boys have discovered how to create content (ie, blogs, add pictures, etc.). This is exactly how this website is supposed to work. I worked with Chris Stegmaier (founder, owner, and website designer for Corodyne) to create a page that did not rely on a webmaster. The reason for this was mostly fiscal as I was horrified as how much money the club was shelling out for the old website. With this club's budget, that money is much better spent on other things. 
Anyway, if you are interested in learning how to create content for the page, you can learn at drupal.org.  You can also just go to the "create content" option in your menu and play around. Everything is fairly self-explanatory, but if you have a question on how to do something, don't hesitate to contact me or Chris.
I know there are tons of digital pictures floating around out there. When you guys get a minute, please upload them. I've set up several galleries for the photos from last year and years before. Setting up galleries is very simple so if you have pictures that don't fall under any of those, then either set one up yourself or let me know and I'll set one up for you and email you directions on how to do it yourself in the future.
The success of this site will ultimately be the result of our own work, there is no excuse for us to blame any "webmaster" because we're all the webmaster!
Have fun with the site, it's easy to use once you start playing around -- I think you'll find it's very logical, lots of "point and click".
Cheers,
Donnie

That's right, the long-awaited, never-duplicated new online home of the Augusta Rugby Club is here and ready to go.  In contrast to the old site, we're going to have numerous extra features that the old site just couldn't support like user-created content (blogs, images, stories), increased advertising functions, and places to actually put those advert banners.
Did you notice the huge Corodyne banner at the top?  You can have something there, too.  You just have to contact us and sign up as a sponsor or online advertiser and we'll put your baner there or on the right hand side.  There's even a space in the direct center of the front page, but we don't have one in there, yet.
The old site is gone, it's true.  But, we've got the whole thing downloaded and saved off so the old content is going to get slowly ported to the new site as we go along.  Sadly, the old forums are gone.  You'll just have to sign up and start making new ones.
Oh yeah, did I forget to mention SIGN UP?  Do it here.
Steg
Friend of Silky, Corodyne Webmaster