A Greatly Improved Effort but The Ramblers Fall to The Bombers
 
What looked like a scrummaging practice that was occasionally interrupted by a rugby match saw the Ramblers fall to the Bombers 27 - 7 in their first match of the season.  The Bombers ran in a total of 5 tries to the Ramblers 1. 
 
While the Ramblers excelled in the set pieces, dominating a Bombers pack that saw many turn overs in the scrums, stolen balls at the breakdowns; a few missed tackles and a failure to spread on defense allowed the Bomber’s to put 3 unanswered tries on the board in the first half to make the score at the break 15 – 0. The Bombers flyhalf, John McGeachy, controlled their game superbly scoring two individual tries and looks to be a future SuperLeague player.
The second half saw the Ramblers start strong and put some points on the board when flyhalf, Justin Vogt, was able to elude some would be tacklers and touch the ball down under the posts making the score 15 – 7 after the conversion.  The Ramblers continued to pressure the Bombers with strong runs from the center pairing of Adam Schmitt and Chad “Mac” McDermott and an increasingly dominant performance at scrum time.  That pressure lead to some heated moments, a loss of discipline and a yellow card to each team.  Unfortunately, the Ramblers were unable to capitalize and the Bombers were able to touch down for two more tries to bring the final score to 27 – 7 in their favor.
 
Strong performances were put in by Justin Vogt, Joe Rothermich, Chris Hrdina and Stan Dondle .  Man of the Match was awarded to hooker, Doug Reckamp, for his leadership at scrum time and his aggressive, if somewhat cheeky, performance on the field.
 
The Ramblers drop their first conference game of the 08-09 season but look to even things up against the Sundogs in Kansas City next weekend.