While most students headed to Florida or other southern points for break, the BG men’s rugby team flew to England and still managed to find more sun and better weather than in Ohio.
The team completed a busy schedule that had them playing three matches, attend coaching sessions and tour some of England’s most famous landmarks.
“This was our fourth tour to England and our sixth overseas tour since 2000,” said rugby Director Roger Mazzarella. “We always go to a location where rugby is like a religion and where everyone came get around safely and without someone having to hold their hand.”
English culture and history were a major part of this trip as the team was given guided tours of Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London and the Royal Air Force Museum as well as England’s national rugby stadium at Twickenham. Other trip highlights included visits to the British Museum, the Natural History Museum, the National Gallery and the city of York with its massive Minster and the Viking Museum.
“One of the highlights for me personally was talking to the WWII vets that were touring the RAF Museum at the same time,” Mazzarella said. “One had been a tail gunner in the Lancaster dam busters made famous by the movie of the same name. Several of us talked to him for quite awhile in front of a new display that featured a shot-down dam buster that had just been recovered from the bottom of a Norwegian fjord.”
Wing Ted Kilgore loved the experience.
“Twickenham was unbelievable,” Kilgore said. “It was amazing how every single detail from the color of the paint to the quotations on the walls had been meticulously planned to give the England team players every possible psychological advantage.”
Key to the trip is that a touring side must receive permission from the host country in order to tour.
“This is where the reputation and standard of play of BGSU are key,” Mazzarella said. “They just don’t let anybody go.”
Upon their arrival and following a morning practice with the Aylesbury RFC coaches, BG was hosted at a “president’s” dinner. Attending the dinner were high-level officials from the Rugby Football Union who made presentations to BG head coach Tony Mazzarella, captain Dane Szente and president Frank Viancourt.
In the end though, testing themselves against players that started at the age of five was the key reason for BG making the trip.
In a nod to BG’s success, Brunel University started a number of alumni in the first match, and though down at the half 12–15, the Falcons eventually lost 49–24. But that would be the last taste of victory for the Brits.
Playing against the academy side of one of England’s oldest and most prestigious clubs, the London Saracens, BG raced out to a 24–7 halftime lead on the strength of two tries by fly half Teddy Terezis before eventually winning 33–22.
“This was one of the most important victories in the history of this club,” Mazzarella said. “If I heard it once, I heard it a dozens times of how impressed our opponents were of our pace and quick tempo play.”
Adding a little frosting to the cake was the fact that a pair of Saracens senior club members, Americans Chris Wyles and Hayden Smith had driven over to lend support to their countrymen.
The Falcons crushed league leading University of the Arts London by a score of 108–0. Flanker Frank Viancourt, scrum half Mike Powell, fly half Teddy Terezis, eight man Sean McFarland and flanker Rick Suda each scored a pair of tries in the victory.
With a 4–1 record the Falcons will host Notre Dame at 4:15 p.m. on Saturday at the Doyt Perry Stadium.
