South Jersey 17  Jersey Shore 7

1)  Matt Davis (replaced by Phil Gambino)
2)  Gene Graf
3)  Tom Diaz
4)  Brian Nace
5)  Chris Lina
6)  Justin Band
7)  Gerrit Van der Merwe
8)  Brent DiRomauldo
9)  Alex Diaz
10)  Tom Ferrari
11)  Mike Romisitis
12)  Stu Dunker
13)  Jason Hoban  (replaced by Vinny Santangelo)
14)  Jeff Allen
15)  Jeff Pastava
 
The Devils traveled to Somers Point for their annual Bayfest game this weekend.  Competing for the new "Bayfest Cup," the team played Jersey Shore in what is contemplated to be an annual event. 
 
Let's hope not all of the future games resemble this one.
 
This was a game full of knock-ons, dropped passes, missed tackles, miskicks and missed opportunities, occasionally interrupted by fisticuffs.  Not the greatest advertisement for the game of rugby. 
 
And yet, there was  a ferocious commitment by both teams that lent the game a tension that made it compelling to watch.  The tight scoreline throughout the 80 minutes gave both teams an air of desperation and led to many crunching hits and vicious cleanouts at the tackle area.  It was no surprise that the ref handed out four yellow cards before the proceedings drew to a close. 
 
The difference in the two teams yet again appeared to be South Jersey's ability to maintain greater poise when things got difficult.  It was clear that one team has developed the habit of winning while the other gave away a game they should never have lost.
 
South Jersey never got on track in this game.  In past weeks the slow start was quickly forgotten and the team flowed.  This week, however, the flow didn't occur until the 78th minute.  And even then, a surefire try was blown by a dropped pass.  It seemed that the Devils were trying too hard at times.  There were an infinite number of risky offloads attempted that inevitably ended up as turnovers or scrums to Jersey Shore.  South Jersey forced the issue over and over and tried to score tries that would have come with greater patience and better execution.
 
The first half was scoreless for the first 35 minutes during which the forwards had at each other.  Truth be told, the Jersey Shore eight got the better of the exchanges during this period.  The Devils were dominated both territorially and in terms of possession.  Still, they did not crack.  The drifting defense stimied the Sharks repeatedly, despite far too many linebreaks leaked by the Devils.  Although the line was threatened, the Devils held firm and toiled manfully to keep the Sharks out.  The scrambling defense, after the initial line of defense was broken, snuffed out attack after attack.  The work load was shared by all, but once again, Vinny Santangelo and Mike Romisitis showed the knack to make the key tackle that killed off a threatening movement by the Sharks.
 
The look on the faces of the Devils after ten minutes indicated that, frankly, the Sharks were far better than had been anticipated.  The only area where the Devils consistently dominated was at the set pieces.  For the second week running, the domination of set pieces enabled the Devils to deny the opposition vital possession at key moments.  The front row owned every scrum.  And the lineouts were ruled by Chris Lina and Brent DiRomauldo.  In those two areas lay the key to the team's ultimate triumph.
 
Open play was a different story.  The referee's curious interpretation of the tackle area meant that the Devils could not get their hands on the ball during lengthy periods of play.  Although I am loath to quibble with referees, it did appear that the Devils' backrow were unfairly penalized on numerous occasions when they appeared to legally steal the tackled ball.  Despite the obstacle of the "31st man," the backrow played very well all afternoon.  It was a welcome sight to see Gerrit Van der Merwe return from injury as well as Justin Band playing his first game this Spring. 
 
The Devils had one golden opportunity at the 20 minute mark.  For the first time in the half, they were able to retain ball after a 25 meter rumble off the back of a lineout by Chris Lina.  The entire Sharks backline had to commit to tackling him leaving space out wide.  The ball was moved intelligently and the Devils had a two man overload 5 meters from the tryline.  The ball was knocked on.  
 
It was a microcosm of the whole game.  Great effort, excellent decision-making, poor execution - chance lost. 
 
In the 35th minute the deadlock was broken.  The Sharks' forwards battered away for several phases before the ball was spun to the inside center who danced his way through the tattered Devils defense for a score under the sticks.  The try was easily converted.
 
Just before the halftime whistle some ugliness broke out that resulted in an official warning to both teams by the referee. 
 
The game was turning spiteful but that appeared to be to the Devils' liking.  The fighting and chippiness spurred the boys on and they were a far more spirited team in the second half.  The momentum swung quickly as the Devils began to assert their own form of intimidation. 
 
Just after halftime, the Sharks launched an attack at midfield.  In a signal that they thought they could manhandle South Jersey, they used a series of forward charges off the edge of the tackle area.  This tactic had been successful in the first half.  Alas, for the Sharks, the second half was a different game.  The first Shark forward was swarmed by Brian Nace and driven back at the rate of knots for 10 meters before the ball was spilled.  The game appeared to turn on that one tackle.  Suddenly the Devils were on the front foot and attacking through the middle of the Sharks' defense with greater confidence.  Unfortunately, the poor handling repeatedly cost the devils scoring opportunities.
 
The Devils were finally able to force the game into the Sharks 22m area with some quality kicking.  The end result was a Sharks scrum 5m in front of their own posts.  On the first feed, the Devils buckled the Sharks scrum backwards into the tryzone.  Spectators actually gasped out loud.  Sharks actually moaned out loud.  At the point it seemed mathematically impossible for the Devils to lose.  They had stood up to the bully and given him a black eye for good measure.  It was almost an inevitability that the next scrum would result in a Devils' score.  The ref incredibly awarded the loosehead-and-feed on the reset scrum to the Sharks!!  It didn't matter.  The ball was fed, the Devils gave another fearsome shove, the ball popped out at Van der Merwe's feet and he drove his way through a trio of Sharks for a terrific forwards' try.  Ferrari converted.
 
The pressure was now applied exclusively by the Devils.  Van der Merwe popped in support of runners all over the field to maintain continuity.  The scrums led to great ball that was then carried forward for important hard yards by man-of-the-match Brent DiRomauldo.  Brent had a very solid day winning a great deal of lineout ball and doing a great job of cleaning up sloppy ball and getting it back over the gainline.  It was, I suppose, a sad commentary on the game that he had a lot of cleaning up to do all afternoon.
 
The Sharks began cracking.  At one point they had two players in the sin bin for repeated infringements.  And even though the Devils lost a player to the sin bin later in the half, the Sharks could not capitalize.  With 15 minutes to go, Ferrari slotted another penalty to put the Devils ahead by 3 points.  Although the scoreboard was reading only 10-7 to the Devils, the game was now being controlled comfortably by the Devils.
 
At the 75th minute mark, the game was made safe for the Devils by an intercept try by Mike Romisitis.  The Sharks were hammering away the Devils tryline.  Despite the pressure, the Devils did not lose discipline.  In fact, it looked as if this was a situation where the Devils seemed comfortable.  The Sharks could not breach the line and were forced to move the ball wide.  Romisitis was grateful for the gift and scampered the length of the field for the score under the posts.  This makes it 4 games straight for Mike in the intercept try department.  It was a necessary score and allowed the team to relax.  It was also pretty incredible as Mike had earlier suffered what looked to be a badly dislocated finger.  He stayed on for his teammates and the result was a key try.  Ferreri converted.
 
In the closing moments, the Devils opened up play and created a scoring opportunity.  Justin Band stole a ball which was moved wide.  Jeff Pastava intelligently drew a defender and fed Gene Graf.  Graf then drew the last defender before putting Romisitis away for an easy run to the tryline.  Sadly, Mike must have been still feeling the effects of the dislocated finger because he dropped the pass.
 
In injury time, the ref sin binned another Devil but it was all too little too late and the Devils scraped home with the win.
 
In closing, the best that can be said for this game is that it showed that this group can win even when they play poorly.  And that's an important quality to have.

B Game

There was a B game but it was a mix of Devils and Widener Law players.  The Devils who played were Rob Wagner, Bob Angelo, Phil Gambino, Brian Nace/Matt Davis, Will Barry, Jason Hoban, Joe Lynch and Pat Martin.