On Saturday, the Gray Side of the Texas A&M men’s rugby club will have its first home game of the fall season against Angelo State University at the North Penberthy Rec Sports Complex.
The Oct. 15 matchup will kick off at 1 p.m., and will be the Aggies first home game as members of the Lonestar Rugby Conference. Gray Side coach Johnny Smith said he helped make sure his team could compete throughout the season by joining a league separate from the varsity Maroon Side.
“We’ve always had a second side, and I have been around since 2003,” said Smith. “The problem that we faced was that other schools couldn’t provide us with a second team to face. So we went to the Texas D1 AA Conference, and asked to add a team to their league.”
The match marks the club’s official start in the Lonestar Conference against ASU, although Smith said that the teams recently met in a tournament. Another game that had been scheduled for Sept. 24 against The University of Texas-El Paso was canceled.
“We played a warm up game against them up in UNT,” said Smith. “ASU is going to come really hard for that first 20 minutes. We’re going to weather that storm, and then hopefully run them off the field.”
Smith’s team is largely made up of underclassmen and rugby rookies, and he said he wants to see fundamental play from his team on Saturday.
“We’re looking to get into our pattern and get moving,” said Smith. “We want to make them move around as much as we can. We just need to maintain our composure and get those butterflies out of our stomachs, and then just stick to the pattern.”
For more information about A&M rugby, visit AggieRugby.com or @AggieRugbyFC on Instagram.
Colin Austin is a journalism senior and contributed this piece from the course JOUR 359, Reporting Sports, to The Battalion.