On losing

There was recently an interesting article in the New York Times called Lessons Learned in the Losing. The author's basic point is that, in a winning-obsessed culture, there's still plenty of good to be found in a loss.

It's a particularly appropriate article considering how the past two weekends have gone for Maryland.

Two Saturdays ago, we played a heart-breaker against Raleigh in skin-melting heat and humidity. Despite the weather, it sure felt like we were winning - we kept up a strong defense, forcing turnovers, and kept possession well while moving the ball up the pitch - but when it was all said and done, we couldn't finish it. Though we spent a good chunk of time inside Raleigh's 22, we only managed to get the ball across the try line once. Added to a brief breakdown in our defensive line which Raleigh quickly took advantage of to turn the corner and run in a try, and we ended up on the losing end of a 5-7 scoreboard. It was an incredibly frustrating loss.

This weekend felt much, much different. We met the DC Furies on the PAC pitch across from the Washington Monument - the weather was beautiful, and we should've been ready for a great day of rugby, but everyone started out off. Our warm-up was messy and full of dropped balls; not surprisingly, the beginning of the game wasn't much better. As we missed our tackles, sat on our heels in defense, and got dominated in our own scrums, DC ran in try after try.

We were losing, no question about it. Standing in our own try zone as the Furies kicked yet another conversion, we weren't talking about winning anymore - just about how we were going to play.

And we pulled it together. First in the scrum - we stopped losing our own scrums and controlled a few defensive scrums well enough to wheel. Then out on the pitch, we got lower and hit harder on the tackles, keeping DC out of our 22 for the majority of the half. Alas, we never scored our own try, but even with a losing score of a lot to nothing, knowing we could pull ourselves together in a bad situation felt pretty good.

Two different losses, neither of which felt like winning. The first was a solid, well-played game where our performance didn't translate to the score board; the second showed how much passion we have for the game. Now our task is to hold onto our strengths and improve our weaknesses to play a coherent game that puts points on the board and a W on our record.