Cougars Throttle Past Aggies

February 6, 2010

Provo, UT–The BYU Cougars bounced back from last week’s laborious win against Delaware to run past the Aggies of Utah State by the score of 86 – 0.

Under an overcast day in Provo the Cougars were able to run in a total of 14 tries and play some solid rugby led by captain and flyhalf Dylan Lubbe who dotted down four times on his own.

BYU used over 30 players in the open-sub win, but it was the BYU forwards who had the run of the day holding serve on all of their set piece possessions while also covering well in the loose in attack and defense.

In fact it was the Cougars’ defense that led to a slew of tries by forcing USU turnovers and frustrating their set piece.

“We had some goals to come out and perform better in defense than we did last week,” said Lubbe, “I was really impressed with the commitment that everyone showed defensively. If we can continue to improve there then we’ll be better off in the long run.”

The first try went to scrumhalf Shaun Davies who stepped his way past two defenders to score from a 5 meter scrum.

The try of the first half came from freshman wing Ryan Blaser who took a wide pass and kicked ahead 30 meters only to regather his own kick and race past the covering USU defenders. In total, BYU’s backs would account for 10 of the Cougars’ 14 tries.

Bringing up the scoring ranks were freshmen Lelan Latu and Ismael Tilialo who each scored a duo of tries during their time on the field.

The Cougars were rarely threatened except for a short 5 minute span as the Aggies hammered on the BYU goal line. Some solid defensive and set piece pressure led to an eventual turn over and the Cougars cleared their lines.

Given the one-way flow of the game assistant coach Wayne Tarawhiti felt his team could learn some solid lessons from this performance.

“We struggled a bit at the break down,” he said, “But the good news is that the guys took on the lessons from last week, improved on most of them and we’ll do the same again this week.”

The Cougars next travel to Las Vegas, NV for the Las Vegas Invitational where BYU’s 1st and 2nd XV sides will take on a total of four teams in the span of two days.

First for the Cougars will the Aggies of Texas A&M on Friday at 1pm on field 2. BYU’s 2nd XV will then kick off against the Air Force Academy at 2.40pm on field 13.

The following day BYU will start the morning early with an 8am kickoff against Southern Utah University at 8am on field 1 and then finish with a match against Cal Poly SLO at 10am on field 6.

Regarding the busy weekend assistant coach Kimball Kjar feels the team will have a number of challenges on and off the field in order to find success.

“The games in Las Vegas will be good for our guys,” he said, “We’re starting to see what our identity is, but the busy schedule and the tough competition will make for some big challenges for us. The guys will really have to focus and be on point if we want to do meet our goals.”

For more details on Cougars’ upcoming schedule at the Las Vegas Invitational stay tuned to BYURUGBY.com

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1st XV for BYU:

1. Mikey Su’a
   
2. Ismael Tilialo
   
3. Inoke Hafoka
   
4. Mark Bonham
5. Isikeli Volavola
   
6. Dave Barnes
   
7. Hynie Leaatoa
   
8. Ryan Roundy
9. Shaun Davies
10. Dylan Lubbe ©
11. Jordan Lontine
    
12. Inoke Funaki
    
13. Viliami Vimahi
14. Ryan Blaser
    
15. Charlie Uluave
    

Scoring:

BYU

Tries: Davies 3”; Blaser 8″; Lubbe 12″, 44″, 54″, 60″; Volavola 16”; Tilialo 20”, 49”; Su’a 28”;  Leaetoa 36″; Latu 39″, 67″; Harrison 75″

Conversions: Davies 4; Uluave 1; Harrison 2; Funaki 1