Auburn University – 10/15/2022 – The Memphis Tigers had a tough day at Auburn.  With seven starting freshmen, the coaching staff wondered how the Tigers would fair. This would be the first real test of the team. 

For 20 minutes, the Tigers stayed mainly within the Auburn 35 meters… knocking on the door… but to no avail.  Mistakes carrying the ball and lack of runner support were the problems. These were the same problems that were experienced in the Mississippi State match, but State did not capitalize on the errors. Auburn saw the mistakes and took advantage. 

In the second half of the first period Auburn took two scores and the confidence of the Tigers was shaken.  The dam broke in the second half, again following Tiger support errors and the score ran away.  The Tigers were able to get a score late in the second half that took the goose egg off of the scoreboard. 

The Auburn pack outweighed the Tigers by 300lbs but the Tigers demonstrated excellent form and were solid. The front of the lineout was not working but the back worked well, so the Tiger backline had plenty of clean ball to work with.  The mistakes seemed to happen on phase play with the Auburn players stealing our ball at the tackle. 

Final score – Auburn, 55-7.

“The score was not a reflection of the way our boys played today”, said Coach Hill.  “I believe they now know they have to tighten up support for the runner and stop making mistakes if we wish to compete at a higher level.”

“The loss hurt, but there were lots of positives about our play today, remarked Coach Beck, backs coach for the Tigers. “We can run with anyone in our league, but we need to heed our lessons.”

Goal now for the Tigers is to build the program and earn an opportunity for a rematch against Auburn at the conference playoffs in 6 weeks.

Man of the Match was Sehrab Baga. He is a beast and dominates the pitch.    

The Tigers take on Georgia Tech at home on 10/22.  We look forward to having the Tiger Nation out to support this home match.    

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The Memphis Tigers ventured to Starkville, Mississippi on Sunday for a conference match with the Bulldogs.  The match was on Sunday due to the fact that the Bulldogs cannot play at home on football game day. 

The Tigers knew going in that they were much stronger.  We have been carrying 40+ players in practice and the Bulldogs are rostering 18.  However, Coach Dave Hill and Phil Beck worked hard to keep the Tigers focused on execution, even when facing a weaker side. No time to get sloppy.

Well, the Tigers took the lead early and did not look back. The Coaches were able to get the subs in early and give them a nice run and the momentum continued. The subs wanted to demonstrate that they could play well too. 

“We were a bit rusty and sloppy for a while but we settled down to play rugby once we got a few hits in, said Seherab Bagha, captain of the side.  We’ve had too much time off and we were ready to get down to business.”

Connor Dempsey was the man of the match due to his excellent control of the match at 10 and his conversions.  He is amazing at knowing what plays will be productive.

Final score was the Tigers on top 43-5 with 7 tries and 4 conversions in the match. 

The Tigers are off next weekend for Fall break and then we travel to Auburn to face our conference rivals. Auburn is the only team that has given us difficulty recently and we cannot take them for granted. They are well coached and they want to win the conference.

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