ALBANY, NY - The Vassar College Men's Rugby team was originally scheduled to play at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute but field issues led to a switch of venue and opponent. So it was that the Brewers faced the University at Albany for the second time this fall and this time it was a road trip to the state capital.

Vassar College Men 85 v 0 University at Albany B-XV
Tries: Jack Gibberd (2), Kaiden Tocher (2), Will Smith (1), TJ Usher (4), Matheo Dwyer (1), Kiran Mullen (1), Caleb DiBartolo (1) & Olly Skeet-Browning (1).
Cons: Kiran Mullen (10).

The message to the team was straightforward and unambiguous, make your tackles and win the rucks. The feeling was that the inexperienced University at Albany B-side would be fiesty, strong running and enthusiastic. This proved to ve true and the home team offered little in attack other than power. If the Vassar players made their tackles then the attacks would be thwarted and eventually run out of support runners.

Sometimes simple is spot on. Of course, allied to the basic defensive duties is the need to use the ball effectively when in possession.

The Vassar scrum was dominant from start to finish and Albany was under a lot of pressure as a result of being shunted back.

The youthful Albany players gave away a slew of penalties at the breakdown and apart from one wayward kick Olly Skeet-Browning punished any offense with long touch finders. The first try came when Vassar caught and drove over for hooker Jack Gibberd to open the scoring account. Kiran Mullen made no mistake with the conversion from out wide and Vassar led 7-0.

Gibberd, who had a brace on the day, took a ball against the head and Number 8 Kaiden Tocher fought his way over to make it 14-0. The Vassar pack was on the front foot most of the time and it was a long day for the Great Danes.

Unfortunately, Vassar's Bryce DiNardo tweaked his knee and had to come off the field. Matheo Dwyer switched from the outside center slot and Rookie Ben Remy came on.

Vassar continued to pour on the points and the U. at Albany players didn't have any answers. At the half Vassar led 47-0.

Tocher added a try and ran well. TJ Usher scored four over the 80 minutes and has lateral movement faster than a humming birds wings. Eight members of the team scored tries and Kiran Mullen connected on 10 conversions.

Team: 15 Kiran Mullen 14 Phil Knowlton 13 Matheo Dwyer 12 Martrel "TJ" Usher11 Ezra Potts 10 Olly Skeet-Browning 9 Bryce DiNardo 1 Benson Cao 2 Jack Gibberd 3 Justin Lederer 4 Will Smith 5 Dimitrios Tzepos 6 Gabe Slavin 7 Samia Jaman 8 Kaiden Tocher. 
Subs: Ben Remy for Bryce DiNardo, Zach Prince for Samia Jaman, Owen Rau for Gabe Slavin, Leon Moore for Will Smith, Caleb DiBartolo for Dimitrios Tzepos and Zhongia Hou for Jack Gibberd.

Next weekend: Vassar College Men versus SUNY-Maritime B at Southern Connecticut University.