Dartmouth Men Win Big Over Yale at Homecoming
Dartmouth hosted Yale this past weekend in front of a terrific Homecoming crowd at Brophy Field. It was the teams’ second meeting and the Big Green’s last home match of the fall XVs season. Yale had been playing good rugby in recent weeks and Dartmouth went into the game looking to implement the systems and goals they’d been working towards in practice and improve on their previous performance. The Big Green scored first and played strongly for eighty minutes en route to an 81-12 victory.
Senior flanker and co-captain Neil Greene opened the scoring in the fourth minute with a line break and a 40-meter run down the center of the pitch. Greene shared postgame “I was happy we were able to create an early scoring opportunity off a stolen scrum. It set the tone for how we wanted to play the rest of the game.”
Minutes later, another strong individual effort, this time from Wilson Chockley, saw the junior wing field a high kick and fake a pass to Madison Hughes before scampering 50 meters himself for his first of two tries on the day.
Hughes, who despite coming out of the game before halftime, led the team in points with 15. He commented, “It was great to see several guys getting their first A-side experience, which is vital for improving squad depth.”
The thirteen tries on the day came from twelve different players and in a variety of forms, including sophomore 8-man Phil Sheridan’s late-game score in his first XV debut.
“Despite the score line,” Hughes continued, “there were several areas we didn't perform up to our own expectations. We'll be targeting those this week, ahead of a tough challenge against Brown next weekend.”
Dartmouth’s defense played soundly on the day, not conceding any tries, but did allow Yale to capitalize four times off penalty kicks.
When asked for his thoughts on the match, coach Gavin Hickie shared, “I am happy with the win and that we remain undefeated after 5 games of the Ivy Conference North. Winning the Ivy Conference is our primary aim and we are still on course for that.”
Hickie added, “We will go through the video of the game with the players and highlight some key areas we want to address this week. It is essential that we finish the XVs season on a high with a solid week’s work and a strong performance next Saturday.”
Dartmouth travels to Providence next Saturday to face Brown in the Ivy XVs regular season finale. The 1st XV match kicks off at 11:00 with the 2nd XV to follow at 1:00.