March 28, 2022

Face it, would you have kicked the points? To recap, you are on the road, down by six points with about twenty minutes to go. You have weathered the storm, so to speak, and are in a decent position against one of the top teams in the league. Knocking over the three points would put you within one score of tying or going ahead. And you get the ball back from the kickoff.

Not taking the points might have appeared a mistake just minutes later, as running the ball failed to get you over the try-line.  Then, to make matters worse, you suffer a yellow card so you have to play most of the rest of the game shorthanded, as Jesse Parete was deemed guilty of a professional foul by interfering with the ATL scrumhalf who was trying to clear from a ruck.

So who would have predicted the final ten minutes, where the Free Jacks poured on the pressure, crossing for two tries and a total of seventeen points against the fading ATL defense? The Free Jacks have had a history of allowing teams to sneak a consolation score near the end of games, giving them a valuable bonus point, but that would not happen today. Although rather than occurring at the end of the game, it did happen at the end of the first half, when the Free Jacks failed to find touch and Rugby ATL was able to get in for a try, but who wants to quibble about that when the local team is in first place atop the Eastern Conference standings with a solid 6-1 record?