November 5, 2005

Amherst, Massachusetts

BROWN LOSES SEASON FINALE

With all of the progress the team has made this season, it just wasn’t enough to win our
last match. The league structure had Brown playing Amherst again. With only one match
to play against Amherst, Brown had moments of success, but Amherst was just too much
as they defeated Brown 43-17.

Amherst’s size in the forwards was immediately apparent as an Amherst maul was driven
well into the Brown end in the opening minutes of the match. Several sequences later,
Amherst scored for a 7-0 lead.

Brown defended well for a time and poached and spoiled a bit of Amherst’s ball but the
Bruins were unable to win their own scrums when it mattered most, and the score at
halftime was 19-0 on three tries, two converted. Brown was unfortunate not to make a
penalty kick awarded in the first half.

At this point the game was not out of reach, but two more Amherst tries in the second
half, raised the score to 31-0. There is little to do when the team is being overpowered,
but several replacements went on the field to bring in fresh legs.

Brown got a break midway through the second half when fullback Patrick Roux’09
kicked ahead. The ball took a Brown bounce and Roux touched down for try to put
Brown on the board. Minutes later a nice bit of phased play ended with a break by flyhalf
Phil Roux’06 who fed wing Hugh Livengood’07 for a try in the left corner. At 31-10
Brown was showing signs of life, which unfortunately was offset by yet another Amherst
try, bringing the score to 36-10.

Amherst’s final points followed a very poor decision near the Brown line by the referee,
who first signaled for an Amherst foot up, but as the Brown team came forward to play
the ball, the referee reversed his decision and awarded the free kick to Amherst. Their
scrum half opportunistically ran it in past the surprised Brown players.

A match ending score by Brown preserved some dignity as a kick ahead was run to a
ruck, which was recycled from center Jeff Margulies’07 to Patrick Roux who, when
tackled, passed off the floor to center Nick Stoker’09 who dove over the line for the try
which Patrick Roux converted.

Players of the match: Forwards: Zach Whitener’09

Backs: Patrick Roux’09
First XV Squad
1. Yale Wang’06
2. Simon Salgado’07 (replaced in second half by Jeff Stasz’07)
3. Kevin Thomas’07 (replaced in second half by Ryan Couto’07)
4. Alan Gabel’08 (replaced in the second half by Ted Brown)
5. Dave Schwartz’09
6. Ted Brown’07 (replaced in the second half by Dan Levitt’08)
7. Dave Meisner’07
8. Zach Whitener’09
9. Tom Flaherty’08
10. Jeff Margulies’07 (replaced in second half by Phil Roux’06)
11. Jon-Michael Divirro’07 (replaced in the second half by Hugh Livengood’07)
12. Matt Gelb’06 (Captain) (replaced in the second half by Jeff Margulies)
13. Nick Stoker’09
14. Dan Fombonne’07 (replaced in the second half by Ethan Brown’07)
15. Patrick Roux’09

With this loss, Brown ended the fall 2005 season with a first team record of two wins and
six losses. The second team was very competitive, finishing the season with a run of 4
straight victories and a 5-1-1 record. Hopefully with 17 juniors, 12 sophomores and 14
freshmen returning, Brown’s fortunes will begin to change for the first XV and will
continue to dominate at the second XV level.

The New England Rugby Union Annual Meeting is this weekend, and after that meeting,
Brown will know whether they will be relegated to the second division. At the moment,
no second division club wants to move up to the first division. So Brown may have a
choice regarding the league we compete in next fall. In any event, we must improve our
play in order to remain competitive.

Be on the lookout for our fall newsletter, which will be out soon. Thanks for all the
emails. We appreciate your support and concerns for the Brown Rugby Program. The
coaching staff: Allie Noble, Skip Barry, Dave Laflamme and Jay Fluck look forward to
the spring season and keeping you updated on our progress.

JF6009