See the full gallery here: http://store.justinacuff.com/g/maryville_vs_karns_2010_05_01

After shooting the South Doyle vs Farragut rugby match, I decided to stay for one more game.  This game was for the Conference Girls Cup Championship.  Both teams played real solid each half.  In the end though, it was Maryville coming away with the 13-10 victory over Karns.

100501180509-330 100501180239-000 100501180241-530 100501180431-000 100501180442-740 100501180446-970 100501180453-000 100501180502-340 100501180507-110 100501180510-290 100501180648-360 100501180650-260 100501180721-950 100501180730-000 100501180833-780 100501181653-880 100501181701-650 100501182207-000 100501182250-130 100501182550-000 100501182638-590 100501184651-020 100501184906-000 100501185419-000 100501185617-610 100501185705-570 100501190614-040

See the full gallery here: http://store.justinacuff.com/g/bearden_vs_south_doyle_2010_04_10

Originally my plans for Saturday was to get in a couple of Rugby games. Lacrosse ended up taking longer that I thought it would, so I decided to just shoot the Bearden vs South Doyle game at 4:00.  A friend from church was wondering when I would shoot something of South Doyle’s (they are outside of my normal coverage area).  Since it was late afternoon, the lighting was really nice.  I was setup to shoot Bearden for the first half and South Doyle for the second half. Unfortunately, during the first half, most of the action took place on the other end of the field.  I think I counted 4 trys by South Doyle in the first half while Bearden had none. I didn’t see how many kicks were made. During the second half South Doyle had like 3 tries and Bearden 1.  South Doyle was really in control of the game and came away with the victory.

100410160116-000 100410160151-110 100410161200-500 100410161948-930 100410161955-090 100410161959-320 100410162215-460 100410162219-990 100410162638-100 100410163652-390 100410164020-000 100410164227-680 100410164559-000 100410164620-110 100410164626-070 100410164913-460 100410164924-170 100410165240-840 100410165246-320 100410165703-700 100410165756-000 100410170049-860 100410170053-080 100410170605-530

See the full gallery here: http://store.justinacuff.com/g/farragut_vs_bearden_2010_03_20

Rugby is an interesting sport.  It’s sort of a mixture of football and soccer. It seems it has been gaining some popularity in recent years here in the Knoxville area.  So much so, that in recent years a need was seen and now has been meet for a park that has dedicated rugby fields.  This is the Tennessee Rugby Park just outside of Karns on Oak Ridge Highway.  If you’ve never watched a rugby game, let me try and explain some of the rules or alternatively visit this page http://www.smacrugby.com/Info/spectator.htm.

It’s like football in that the goal is to carry a pigskin ball (larger and less aerodynamic than a football) to the goal or kick it through the goal posts.  It’s like soccer in that play only stops when a team scores, an infraction happens, the ball goes out of bounds, or it is the end of the half.  It’s a little different than football in that a forward pass is illegal.  The only ways to advance the ball forward is to run with it or kick it. A player can pass the ball laterally or behind them, but never forward. Like soccer, the players must always stay onside.  If they go offside, they can not touch the ball until a player with the ball runs past them making them onside again.  Unlike football, there is no blocking, so long runs can make a player really vulnerable.  When a player is tackled (waist high and below only), they must give up possession of the ball by placing it on the ground.  Sometimes a teammate or opponent can just pick it up and take possession.  Other times, you’ll see a ruck form.  A ruck is really similar to a scrum, scrums just happen after play was stopped.  When these form, you will typically see the forwards from both teams huddle up around the ball and push the opposing team out of the way all while trying to use their feet to push the ball back to one of the backs.  Each side will have 15 players on the field, 8 forwards and 7 backs.  All players are eligible to move the ball, either by running or kicking.  When the ball goes out of bounds, a line out is formed.  The team that didn’t put the ball out of bounds is awarded the ball and throws the ball in. This is why you see the players try and lift one of their players up real high.

Now for the scoring.  There are only four ways a side can score.  The first way is to place the ball on the ground after crossing the goal line.  This is called a try.  5 points are awarded for a successful try.  After a try, a conversion kick is attempted. This is worth 2 points.  The placement of the ball is determined where the ball was placed after the successful try.  This is why you’ll often see a player cross the goal line and then try to run towards the center. The third way is a drop-kick.  This would be similar to the punting a field goal in football.  The fourth way to score is a penalty kick.  It is a drop-kick from the spot of an infraction.  Both the drop-kick and penalty kick are worth 3 points.

That’s really just the basics.  I’m sure there are things I’m missing because I’m really starting to learn the sport too.  Another thing I’m still learning is the nuances of my recently bought Canon 7D.  I wanted to primarily shoot with the 7D and the 300mm f/2.8L IS with a 1.4x Teleconverter on it.  This allowed me to shot the entire game from behind the goal area.  Unfortunately, that means I didn’t see hardly any action the first half.  Farragut was always moving the ball the opposite direction.  The easy solution would have been to go to the other side, but then I would been fighting the sun.  I opted to keep the sun to my back and hope Bearden would come my way.  I don’t know the final score, but it was a blowout by Farragut.

100320111357-000 100320112108-510 100320112417-750 100320112555-370 100320112746-120 100320112942-000 100320113517-930 100320113818-120 100320113919-000 100320114245-580 100320114250-880 100320114311-330 100320114414-680 100320115158-000 100320115254-770 100320115745-110 100320115756-030 100320115823-100 100320115917-000 100320115926-380 100320120036-000 100320120040-000 100320120922-000 100320121118-240 100320121339-760 100320121840-310