Ruggers and friends,

    Let me put it  to you like this, if you had a chance to view this game and decided not to for whatever reason....man did you blow it. This was the most exciting game I have seen in a long time, action from whistle to whistle, both teams fighting hard for their post season life.

    Early in the game Boca seemed to have an edge and a lot of penalties against Fort Lauderdale put Boca in position for an early penalty kock from 40 meters which they made 3-0. I must admit I was not comfortable, the refereee was a lady, I had seen her many times before and she is quite good as a ref, but it looked like she might have had our number as Boca marched down the field penalty after penalty. The fact is our guys were a little slopy and needed to clean it up a bit which they did. Our guys settled down and began to really bring it. The pack was winning ball and Toby made perfect connections all day long to the backs then Nick Vickers(Who played the game of his life) hit the gap hard and banged his way in for the first try of the game and the score stayed 5-3 till halftime. The score would have been 12-3 but a second try(Sean and Alex I think) of ours was called back when the very blind richard lewis determined "Snap" had stepped out of bounds 50 yards ago! Wow, that was a rough blow. Our center Sean seemed unstoppable running over people left and right and no one could catch him either, the boy IS fast. Not Tim Ford fast but close.

    Even though the score was close for the first half Fort Lauderdale appeared to be in control most of the time with Boca reacting back on their heels. The second half was different Boca was in self destruct mode with many guys committing fouls of every kind and 2 of their big pack guys were flat out cheating, they really hurt Bocas efforts to win  this game. So bad if fact both of them ended up in the sin bin a couple of times and the penalties added up. Late in the game the score was 17-3 thanks to 3 penalties and a drop kick all from "Boot". So with 5 minutes left I was feeling ok, just ok not good because Boca will come back if you give them one sliver of daylight and our boys did just that. Boca decided to stop cheating and start playing solid ball and marched down the field and got a well deserved try and conversion.

Now we are only up 7 points and I am very nervous because Boca is on the move and our guys are jaw jacking with the ref! Here comes the kick off with 3 min left and we fumble it around a bit Boca steals our ball and marches down the field with penalty after penalty against Fort Lauderdale and from what I could see most of them earned. Boca found another gear and we took our foot off the gas, simple as that. Next thing you know there is a furious battle at our try line for at least a minute and then the dreaded whistle, another try. F**k ME the game is tied with about one minute to go.

How many times have we been down this road with Boca before? Post game pictures would show the last Boca try was no try at all which is what 2 of our guys were in the refs face about, one was thrown out of the game and one sin binned.

So with one minute left we are down 2 men and receive the kickoff. Once again Sean gets the ball and runs over 3 of Bocas best and stumbles toward the fullback who barely manages to hold him up but he off loads the ball to someone Boca almost steals it but it ends up in fullback Adam Kennedys hands and from 45 yards out he does a drop kick which goes down the middle for a walkoff drop kick win, no time left on the clock.

    WOW, what a game. Both teams should be proud of the high level play they demonstrated in a real test of wills. great stuff and sorry you missed it, you missed a good one.

    Do not believe any BS about the ref somehow changed the game, she was as good as any ref out there today and better than most. She had control over a bunch trying there best to get away with everything and anything. I could never do what she did, never.

    Next we have Miami, this game will be played in Clermont on a neutral field. I will forward those details to you soon.

                                                                Aloha, Littleman

Picture by Sheri Rogg Galante.