The Yale University Rugby Football Club

YALE 10 - Dartmouth 32

On Saturday the 15th of September, the Yale Rugby Football Club played their opening match of the Fall 2007 season away at Dartmouth.

Dartmouth scored the opening try early in the first half from a well worked passage of play that led to an overlap on the blind-side. While Yale’s first phase play was solid and at times found space in Dartmouth’s defense, they struggled to keep possession, allowing Dartmouth to spend most of the time on attack in the first half of the match.

In the second half, Yale controlled most of the possession, setting up numerous phases in Dartmouth's 22. Dartmouth reacted to the pressure by playing from off-sides positions on defense and deliberately slowing the ball down in the ruck situations, resulting in a series of penalties against them. However, due to some questionable refereeing, Yale was prevented from taking the penalties quickly on 4 occasions while Dartmouth was being warned time and time again about their illegal play, and was therefore unable to maintain the level of pressure that may have led to further tries. A well deserved try eventually came when Taylor Giffen '09 crossed the line after good interplay between Yale’s forwards and backs.

The end of the second half was mostly dominated by Dartmouth thanks to the energy added by their half-time substitutes.