Despite outscoring his four Californian opponents 165-7 at Los Angeles, Cal rugby head coach Jack Clark summed up last weekend as “pretty good” with improvements needed across the board.
The results and numbers at the All-Cal Tournament were insignificant to Clark. As the opening chapter of the 15s season this spring, the competition was a chance for all Cal players to get some playing time.
“The best part about last weekend,” Clark said, “was that there were lots of minutes for the whole squad to play.”
The All-Cal Tournament, composed of six University of California schools, has for years been a contest all about Cal. The Bears have won for seven straight years prior.
Starting in Saturday morning, Cal devoured all three of its opponents for breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea without giving up a single point. UC Santa Barbara fell in the 9 a.m. tilt, 34-0. Three and a half hours later, UC Davis capitulated, 45-0. At 2 p.m., UC San Diego lost with the biggest deficit of the day with a whopping 57-0.
As most veteran starters rested on Saturday, the reserves players got themselves to prove their skills to the coaches. Among the tryouts was senior J.P. Hurrell, the starting linebacker for the football team last season. Hurrell tallied one try in the UC Davis game.
On Sunday, the Bears faced the host UCLA. The Bruins posed the biggest challenge for Cal, prompting Clark to deploy his veterans like senior captain Seamus Kelly. Kelly, who did not play on Saturday, showed no rust as he scored the first two tries of the game in 11 minutes, giving the Bears a 12-0 lead.
Two tries from inside center Jared Braun and flanker Alec Gletzer added to Cal’s score before UCLA scored a try in the 35th minute. Five minutes later, winger Max Schulis scored the last try of the game, extinguishing the Bruins’ small hopes of a comeback.
Despite the incredible score margin, Clark and his crew are still in its infant stages of building a lineup that can contend for a national championship. The Bears are still figuring out who the starters are — it appears as many as six of 15 starting positions are open for intrasquad competition.
“There’s not an overabundance of talent in this team,” Clark said. “We are cautiously hopeful to building a team that can win.”
Because Cal is in the process of constructing a championship-caliber team, Clark and the coaches needed to fix some fundamental issues that frustrated Clark and the coaches. According to Clark, the Bears were having issues with ball retention and discipline.
“The error counts were very high,” Clark said. “We penalized frequently and turned the ball over quite a bit.”
Throughout the interview, Clark mentioned the Feb. 16 match against University of British Columbia as if it had been the first big benchmark of the season. For Cal, the road to Feb. 16 is a fairly easy one, and it will be a time for the team to mature and grow.
“We got to get our system installed,” Clark said.
Contact Seung Y. Lee at [email protected]
Correction(s):
Tuesday’s article “Cal routs opponents in All-Cal Tournament” states that the tournament happened on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 18 and 19. In fact, it took place Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 19 and 20.