St. Louis Bombers Rugby Football Club

The St. Louis Bombers opened the Fall 2006 season at the annual Show-Me Rugby Classic in rural Marceline, Missouri. The four team field was comprised of Pearl City, IA, Kansas City Blues, the Bombers and Kansas City RFC.

The Bombers battled Pearl City, the reigning USA Rugby D-2 championships, on Saturday on a drizzly day in northern Missouri. The matchup was an interesting one as Pearl City turned up with their full contingency of foreign born players, and St. Louis fielded a split A/B squad. The match was scoreless until just before halftime when Pearl City slipped through a tackle and scored under the posts to go up 7-0 at the break.

Pearl City would go up 12-0 after a succesful chip kick found their winger. St. Louis finally started to click as fullback Conail Boyd darted down the blindside and fed wing Alan Kloss, who finished off an excellent 80 meter try. But the try was disallowed as a late decision from the touch judge that Kloss had stepped into touch changed everything. The Bombers kept pressuring until the final whistle, but came up short in their first run of the season 12-0.

Sunday brought a 3rd place match between the Bombers and KCRFC. This time St. Louis looked a bit sharper as they jumped out early and held on late. Flanker JP Shen opened the scoring from a lineout drive converted by Conail Boyd 7-0. Boyd added another 8 points with a 60 meter try from a backline move and a penalty kick to go up 15-0. Flyhalf Bryan Lay dummied his way through to score untouched and Boyd's conversion just before half gave the Bombers a 22-0 halftime lead.

Bomber prop Gio Lafata got the second half scoring started with a try from a lineout drive to put St. Louis up 27-0. But KC was not ready to fold. Some solid mauling from lineouts set the platform for back-to-back tries, the first from lock Jeremy Dick and second from wing Dan Gray. Flyhalf Tim Davies converted both to draw KC to 27-14 with 20 minutes to play. The remainder of the match saw play go back and forth. Boyd's penalty kick sealed the deal for St. Louis in the late stages and the Bombers took home 3rd place with a 30-14 victory.