And We Are BACK!

Hey everyone.

Not that this blog had a loyal following beforehand but I am back to the ole bloggin’ factory and I know you all can’t contain your excitement. I didn’t feel like creating a new site from scratch so we are going to pretend the last 3 years didn’t happen and start anew.

I’ve gained a loyal following of 397 of you on Twitter and it’s apparent that my humor doesn’t translate into 280 characters, I’m more of a long-form guy. Just like Shakespeare, ever hear of him? Since I am currently in the midst of my job hunt and the most human interaction I get during the day is talking to my cats about how the new GOP socio-economic policies are going to drastically affect the type of cat food I buy them (Bentley is non-plussed about this) I decided to jump on here and use this as a launch pad for my thoughts.

Originally this was going to strictly be a rugby based blog and while I still hold the thought that rugby will be a main sport in the United States in the next few years, I’ve decided to go an alternate route and write about anything that really comes to mind. There will be food/restaurant reviews, guest bloggers, plugs for products you may or may not truly need, and my unfiltered, unadulterated thoughts that will fill a gap in your life that you didn’t know you had.

Quick little rundown of who I am for any of you who don’t follow my twitter. I’m a Massachusetts transplant by way of Rhode Island who was commuting to the outskirts of Boston for the better part of a year and a half. I have two cats, a “purebred” Russian Blue that we bought off of Craigslist for far too much money (Millie) and an adopted black & white cat (Bentley). They most likely wont be the focus of too many of my blogs as I am not a crazy cat owner yet but I will throw some lines in about them from time to time. I promise I’m not talking to myself when I refer to them (yet).

Let’s buckle up and see where this road takes us.

#Sydney7s Predictions & Welly Recap

So last weekends Wellington 7s did not go well. The US went 1-1-1 in pool play tying France, beating Samoa, and losing to New Zealand before going into the Challenge trophy bracket where they staged a comeback against a dismal Japan squad and blew a halftime lead to Kenya. Whatever. Hopefully this weekend shapes up better. 

The Pool this weekend is considerably lighter than last with Canada, Argentina and Russia. I’m not as confident as I was last weekend though. Russia should be a convincing win, Canada is a scary team who made the semis last week before losing to South Africa (they’re pretty good at rugby). Argentina also came in 5th last week beating a French squad that the US tied. Matches are at 5:30pm (Argentina), 8:58pm (Canada) and because the rugby gods want me to inherently be exhausted on Saturday 2:23am (Russia). 

Wins are all attainable here. I’m hopeful for 2-1 but wouldn’t be surprised to see it flipped. The boys are gonna have to play like men to make the Medal rounds. Let’s bring some hardware home and go into Vegas with a full head of steam (Vegas is the next stop on tour). 

Update on the candy saga: apparently a bunch of people on twitter got offended that I said skittles were a hard candy  I’d like to take this time to apologize

To Absolutely Nobody

Is It Crazy to Put Hard Candy in the Same Bowl as Soft Candy? – An Investigation

Today was my day off so I did what any red blooded American male would do, woke up around 11, fired off a few tweets and proceeded about my day. Walking through my kitchen I took a glimpse at the candy corner that has been in my family for generations. Usually I would take a few pieces of candy and not think twice but today! Today was different.

There were skittles in the gummy bear jar.

Before I continue for those of you who don’t know what a candy corner is, it’s essentially a small 6 shelf wall mounted area with jars that people (usually old Italians) put candy in for their grandchildren. It’s awesome.

Back to the main issue. Skittles were COVERING the gummy bears. I’m a man of simple tastes, give me lite beer, gas station food, and generic coffee and I’m good. But gummy bears are one of the few things in life I truly take as a small delight. I go in for a handful to wake me up and to quote the venerable Lee Corso, NOT SO FAST MY FRIEND! My hand was met with the hard candy coated shell of skittles.

I was devastated.

Apparently after further investigation we had too much candy and not enough jars, which could be said is a microcosm of American society right now but I digress. Below is a diagram of the candy counter and it’s contents

• Weird old mints/assorted possibly stale halloween candy
• Werther’s Originals (booooooo)
• Sweet tart pellets/balls (delicious)
• Skittle/Gummy Bear amalgamation (SAT word, what of it?)
• Peanut M&Ms
• Regular M&Ms

Now this could go one of two ways, either we toss out the stale weird top jar candy and move the Werther’s to the top shelf or combine the M&Ms. My household isn’t exactly an allergen free zone. But NO. The skittles and gummy bears got mixed together. Did I still eat them? Yes of course. But it’s a matter of principle. Hard candy stays with hard candy. Soft candy stays with soft candy. It’s how our forefathers would have wanted it.

I will be bringing this up to the higher ups, this matter wont stand. #NotMyCandyCorner

7s Wellington Preview

What’s up everyone? I know I take extended leaves of absences from blogging but I’m back for good (or until I forget again).

Tomorrow the third leg of the HSBC Sevens tour imparts in Wellington and our USA Eagles will be taking the pitch again in hopes to start the #MakeUSARugbyGreatAgain campaign. Before we talk about what the squad is going to see in Welly, here’s a quick recap of the first two legs. (Sidenote: I’m writing this on my phone so the beloved pictures that usually grace this blog are going to be noticably absent).

Stop 1: Dubai

In this stop the Eagles had Scotland, Uganda and South Africa. An early 14-5 loss to Scotland shouldn’t inspire much hope but a Danny Barrett try in the 11th minute brough the score within 2. A missed conversion and a try by Scotland at the end sealed match 1. Match 2 saw 24 unanswered Eagles points in the second half for a 29-7 win. Tries by Iosefo (2), Tomasin (2), and Durutalo set the table for this win but conversion kicking was not ideal (2/5). The most exciting match in the group was the final one, albeit a 19-17 loss to South Africa. Falling behind 14-0, Perry Baker brought the team within 9 with a try in Minute 7 but again the Eagles missed the conversion which would rear it’s ugly head in the second half. Another missed conversion brough the score within 4 and with a flair for the dramatic, Perry Baker scored in extra time. 1/3 in conversions 👎🏻

A shellacking of Russia 40-0 in the Challenge Trophy quarter finals saw 5 different Eagles score and the squad go 5/6 in conversion kicks. Next was a 21-19 win over Kenya in the Trophy semifinals. The Trophy finals saw a 28-14 win over Samoa, bringing some hardware home to the States.

Points Earned 8

#MakeUSARugbyGreatAgain meter: 7.8/10

Stop 2: Cape Town

Building off of the momentum of a hardware trip in Dubai the Eagles came out soaring and beat up on Australia 19-0 before falling to the hosts South Africa 28-10. A 26-17 win over Russia moved the team into the Cup quarters which is where the wheels fell off. An overtime loss to Scotland 24-19 was followed by a 28-12 loss to Rio gold medalists Fiji.

Points Earned: 10

#MakeUSARugbyGreatAgain meter 6/10. Need wins folks.

And now here we are. Round 3: Wellington.

The Eagles have 3 pool play matches against New Zealand, France and Samoa. As it stands right now New Zealand is 5th in the standings, France 9th and Samoa 12th. The US is sitting in 8th right now and I expect a big weekend in the other land down undah. Having played well against Samoa before leads me to believe that the boys will be able to be victorious again. The  French do not have the same type of speed that we do with Isles and Baker. New Zealand has the home pitch advantage here but stranger things have happened.

PWagon Prediction: 2-1 in pool play.

Matches are at 7:18pm, 10:42pm and 3:02am EST. Buckle up!

Everyone else:

Pool A: 1. England 2. Kenya

Pool B: 1.Fiji 2. South Africa

Pool C: 1. New Zealand 2. USA

Pool D: 1. Wales 2. Scotland

If you love me, hate me or just wanna @ me find me on Twitter. @Pwagon60

College 7s National Championship Preview

This weekend 60 teams from all over the nation will descend on Cary, NC to compete in the Men’s and Women’s 7s National Championship. This is the largest field to date and offers some pretty exciting matches for the diehard or new fan.

Before we get into the bulk of the article here are the men’s pools for Division 1.

Pool A: Central Washington, New England College, South Carolina, Kennesaw State

Pool B: Lindenwood, Cal-Poly, St. Bonaventure, Fordham

Pool C: St. Mary’s College, Arkansas, Alabama, West Virginia

Pool D: American International, San Diego State, Oklahoma, Bowling Green

Pool E: Davenport, TAMU, Iowa, James Madison

Pool F: Arizona State, Notre Dame College, North Texas, Wyoming

2016 Runner up St. Mary’s College highlights pool C and is expected to be a contender this year but there are a few teams that could make some noise this weekend. James Madison, winners of the 2015 D2 College 7s national championship and New England College, winners of the 2015 Champions Cup in the NSCRO (rugby’s “division 3”), will both look to contend. NEC getting Central Washington on Day 1 is a tough draw but the team has performed well this tournament season.

Quick Picks: Central Washington, NEC, Lindenwood, St. B’s, SMC, Arkansas, AIC, SDSU, James Madison, Davenport, Notre Dame College, Arizona State.

Editors Note: I may have a slight bias with this article as I am a former player of one of these schools but will try my best to keep everything neutral. 

The most interesting tournament in my opinion will happen on the smaller scale in Men’s Division II. The 16 team tournament features Wisconsin-Whitewater and Minnesota-Duluth, both of whom have made many 15s finals over the last few years, as well as Principia College who is looking to win the title again (first was in 2013). Whitewater came in second last year and no doubt has a sour taste in their mouth and will be looking to finish it all this year.

Pool A: Wisconsin-Whitewater, Coast Guard, UNC-Wilmington, UTSA

Pool B: Minnesota-Duluth, Principia, Tulane, Niagara

Pool C: St. Louis, Lindenwood-Belleville, Umass-Lowell, Wisconsin-Eau Claire

Pool D: Salisbury, The Citadel, Salve Regina, Rowan

Looking at each of the pools the one overarching fact is that anyone can win this tournament. Whitewater does have two tournament wins under their belt with Minnesota-Duluth being a runner up in one and Lindenwood-Belleville being the other runner up, but the talent is spread out all across the board. L-B, UM-Duluth, UW-Whitewater, Principia and St. Louis all played each other in tournaments this season which sets them up well for an exciting weekend of play.

Turning our attention to the schools in the Northeast; Salve, UMass-Lowell, and Coast Guard which unfortunately were spread out into three different pools you’ll see something very interesting occur. Salve being the smallest school in this tournament will make some waves. They also only have a male enrollment of 827 in the university, this smaller selection pool for the rugby team means they are this weekends David to the state school Goliath. They recently played against UMass-Lowell and Coast Guard, splitting the friendly 1-1 and qualified with a cracking performance in the CCRC 7s qualifer shutting out 4 teams and beating Wheaton 38-14 and Endicott 28-14. For that tournament, their point differential was +121. The team is young and very rugby smart and are expected to do big things this weekend.

UMass-Lowell will also give St. Louis and Lindenwood-Belleville a run for their money being a tough nosed team who will capitalize on any weak point that their opponents show them.

Quick Picks: Wisconsin-Whitewater, UTSA, Minnesota-Duluth, Principia, St. Louis, UMass-Lowell, Salve Regina, The Citadel.

I unfortunately don’t follow women’s rugby enough to report my thoughts on it. I know Life University will be in attendance and they are always a fun team to watch so watch out for them. Penn State has won the last two titles and a three-peat would be cool to see, sinbinsports officially is jumping on the bandwagon of Penn State Women’s rugby sevens as well as the Life University Running Eagles.

I’ll be very reactionary this weekend on social media. You all know where to find me.

Someone has a case of the Mondays.

Mondays. The start of a new work week and the start of people working for the weekend. With that being said, a whole bunch of stuff happened over this weekend and this is a quick recap blog highlighting my thoughts about everything I didn’t have the time to type.

1. USA Rugby comes in third in London.
2. Exaggerator wins the Preakness.
3. Something happened on Game of Thrones.

To start with arguably the most important thing that happened this weekend, the USA Rugby Sevens team went into London, went 1-1-1 in pool play and qualified for the Cup playoffs. Starting with a 12-5 win over Samoa, the American’s looked like the team that we expected to show up in London, having won the tournament last year. After that the American’s decided to not show up for the next two matches and lost to South Africa and tied Canada 12-12. Waking up on Sunday, they trounced New Zealand 42-14 and ended up losing to the eventual London Sevens champions Scotland, 24-17. Watching that match against Scotland, one thing stuck out to me, we have the potential to be really good. Really good. If Zack Test doesn’t go down at halftime and allows for Palamo to be on the pitch with him at the same time Scotland doesn’t make the comeback that they did. 17 points in 4 minutes is absolute madness. A little more stout defense and the Americans are the ones raising the cup at the end of the day.

Finishing the day with a 26-19 win over Fiji was a nice end to the weekend. The team can now gear up for Rio and I personally expect nothing less than a medal after the 2 days of rugby.

Exaggerator winning the Preakness was pretty cool too. The horse racing community is a weird one so I don’t want to say too much about what happened. But Exaggerator won and now we won’t have to debate if a horse is the best athlete of the year like we did last year.

Spoiler alert: I don’t care if you say I spoiled the show that approximately all of twitter was talking about last night. Hodor dying on Game of Thrones was the second saddest moment on TV ever. Opie on Sons of Anarchy getting the pipe to the back of his head was #1. The whole causality loop that the writers show with Bran and his inability to warg correctly was something else. But I’m not that smart to talk about all this Thrones stuff. I just want to see more White Walkers and Dragons.

The more important thing in the above paragraph is that people actually get offended that a show is “spoiled” for them because of something they read on twitter. I didn’t Periscope the ending to the episode, you don’t know how he died, you don’t know the circumstances around the scene. And isn’t #RIPHodor a little indicative of that happening? I’m really sure that my one tweet was the only one on the Internet that gave the ending away. BTW everyone, Snape kills Dumbledore, Rosebud was the sled, Darth Vader is Luke’s father, Harold and Kumar get to White Castle, and Rudy gets his one play.

Thanks for getting sent off.

 

 

 

AM Sports Talk: The State of American Rugby

Not to get too heavy with the first real blog post on this site but this has been on my mind for a while. Rugby in America is at a crossroads right now and a few facts need to be brought to the table.

First, it’s going to take the place of football in a few years.

A few of you may have stopped reading because football is the one true American sport and you want to make America great again and all of that nonsense but facts are facts. Now I have been on both sides of the aisle as both a player and coach and this is where my stance comes from. Too many reports are coming out now with the prevalence of CTE cases and the rising rate of injury to football players from an early age. Parent’s simply are pulling their kids from the sport because they’re afraid of what could happen.

In a sense, they’re right. Anytime you strap on a helmet and shoulder pads you are added to your overall body mass & according to my senior year physics class that I almost failed with the increase in mass, the force of a collision will also go up provided that your acceleration stays the same (F=m*a) (Yeah science!). With the increased force of collisions, there is also an increased risk of concussion and bodily harm that could happen on the field. Now I’m not saying that rugby is immune to the same types of injuries, I’m just saying that the nature of the beast is less violent in a sense that the lack of disappating hits allows for a safer experience both offensively and defensively.

There probably is more science behind why rugby is indeed one of the safer albeit more violent sports but that’s not what I’m here to talk about today. When you look at a rugby team you see 15 guys on the field of all different sizes and while you may see the same on a football field, there is more of a unique difference in rugby. Is it more open for people to play than football? Maybe. I absolutely loved coaching football but when it came down to brass tacks, the starting 11 all fit roughly the same mold. With rugby anyone with any semblance of athleticism can play and excel. You have lumbering props mixed in with shifty fly halfs mixed in with giant like second rowa, it’s like the Star Wars cantina scene but it’s truly awesome.

According to a Forbes report, rugby is one of the fastest growing sports in the US among high school and college kids. There are over 450,000 players registered in the United States and with the addition of PRO Rugby North America, there soon will be a boom in both participation and match attendance.  When the All Blacks came to play against the Eagles at Soldier Field in 2014 it drew a crowd of 61,500. While comparing this number to football seems low, it was for a game that the Eagles had no chance in winning (spoiler: they didn’t win, the All Blacks hung 74 on the Eagles 6). Diehard fans came from around the country to get a glimpse of the haka and the technical rugby prowess that New Zealand possesses. But more importantly, they came to support their country in a time where a rugby boom was nowhere near being on the horizon. Now that we creep closer to the boom, another international friendly may see close to 80-90,000 fans in attendance depending on the stadium.

Yes there is a monetary disparity between US Rugby and the rest of the world (USA Rugby has a budget of $10 million while England has a $105 million player development budget). However, with this new boom that will happen within the next year or so, supporters will see an increase in television exposure and hopefully an increase in revenue from the new avenues that are being opened up. The advent of sevens coming to the Olympics this year will help, but it will only be a two day tournament in which the casual fan will forget about it when the next gold medal ceremony starts up.

 

In case my rambling stream-of-consciousness lost you there let me reiterate something for you. Rugby will be taking the place of football in a few years.

No we have never won a World Cup. No we don’t have the same skills that some other countries have. And no, our children don’t come out of the womb with a rugby ball in one hand and a Guinness in the other. But facts are facts. As of 2015 there was an increase in participation of 14 percent and there has been an even higher increase in the amount of people watching rugby. You can now turn to most any NBC channel, as well as FoxSoccer, or BeIn sports to get your rugby fix. This increase in television exposure, especially during a lull in the sports season, when there is only baseball and mediocre playoff basketball going on, has greatly helped the cause. We live in a world where people will watch something solely because the rest of twitter is watching it (like Silicon Valley, but my hate for that show is for a different blog). If rugby found a way to monopolize the season during the lulls in the sports world, the only problem would be that Nigel Melville couldn’t put all of the new found money in the same vault.

There is traditionally a dead period post Stanley Cup/NBA Finals when it’s truly the dog days of summer. Put any type of rugby tournament, playoffs, etc on during that time and ratings would skyrocket. Looking forward on the calendar for this year, we have the CRC 7s tournament in Philadelphia on June 4th and 5th, most of which will be on the NBC Sports network as well as a lesser known tournament happening Memorial Day weekend in North Carolina. This tournament, the USA Rugby College 7s National Championships, will feature 24 Division 1 Men’s teams, 16 Men’s Division 2 teams, 11 Division 1 Women’s teams, and 9 teams in Women’s Division 2. That’s 60 teams on 3 fields from May 27-May 29th. All of the 170 games will be live streamed on a website called The Rugby Channel for free. An interesting aspect of The Rugby Channel is that they offer a monthly fee to get all different types of rugby matches that a viewer may not normally get to have with their current cable package. Regardless of the fact that I think the Rugby Channel should sponsor this site, it is an avenue to reach fans and also an additional sponsorship opportunity for both USA Rugby and the IRB.

Earlier in the blog we mentioned that rugby will be taking the place of football in a few years, and 1000 words in I still believe that is true. Many of the PRO Rugby matches that take place are livestreamed on Facebook, allowing fans to watch without having to find illicit and possibly illegal ways to watch a stream of their favorite PRO team. Sometimes rugby junkies need their fix as soon as possible and this interaction with social media may be the ticket. The NFL made news recently when they gave twitter the exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football games and many fans were confused with what that meant. Is Twitter the correct avenue for fans to watch the Titans and Jaguars battle out mediocrity on a Thursday in November? Probably not. Is Facebook the correct avenue to connect fans to not just PRO rugby but any type of sport? My answer would be yes. The interesting thing that these livestreams allow are for fans to instantly react with the comment feature, which is exactly like twitter, but it allows for the browser to be open to make these comments. A lot of twitter folks lamented that it would be annoying to stop watching the game to fire off a hot tweet about how Blake Bortles has only seen snow one time, and then go back to the game. This may or may not be the wrong move for the NFL but we will see. Facebook livestreams are the way of the future and fan involvement is what is hot on the streets as the kids say. It’s lit fam (I’m still working on my lingo, see below)

One final point, and thank you if you made it this long with me. Looking at pure numbers, collegiate rugby has the most participants out of any club sport in the country. Many High School athletes see rugby as a new avenue to pursue high level scholarships and the numbers don’t lie. In the 2008-2009 season their were only 779 participants in the country playing HS rugby. As of the 2014-2015 season, there were 1,599 participants. Where did these additional 800 participants come from? I would warrant a guess that the exposure rugby has seen from 2009-2015 would allow for almost a 50% increase in participants. Rugby is safer, more violent, and teaches kids more about life than most things they will learn in school. With the prevalence of parents not allowing their son to play football, many should look toward the pitch and see what great things lie ahead for not only their kin but the future of American rugby as well.

This is where rugby will take the place of football . We will still have our college football Saturday’s and NFL Sunday’s but rugby will be a sport that fathers across the country will be on the sideline for cheering for their sons. Running opposite to football season, much like lacrosse, it could be and will be a viable spring sport for many football players. Rugby will open up doors for those who don’t get the Division 1 offers and will be alongside football as the sport everyone pauses their life to watch.

Will the USA Eagles ever raise the Webb-Ellis cup or win Gold in Sevens? I hope so, but it’s going to take a concerted effort between the fans and participants to raise the standard of American rugby to a point where we can compete with the New Zealands, Englands, and Australias of the world. If Little Johnny Smith straps on the boots instead of begging for a $150 bat that he’ll outgrow in a week, we’ll be headed in the right direction. If Athletic Directors country wide are buying more scrumcaps than helmets to outfit their Varsity and Junior Varsity rugby teams, we’ll be headed in the right direction. All it will take is a little bit more exposure and a little success and the future of American rugby will be bright.

 

 

 

Mission Statements and Other Pleasantries

So here we are again. This will be my third or fourth foray into the blogging world but this time I’m here to stay. Essentially, the mission of sinbinsports (besides not getting a cease and desist by a Canadian company of the same name) is to provide you, the reader, a place to go for 10 minutes a day to get your daily dose of hot takes. You’ll learn, you’ll laugh, you’ll love, you’ll wonder how I graduated from a University and still have zero knowledge of proper grammar or comma usage.

A little backstory before we get into the nitty-gritty of blog life. I wrote for another blog last year during the run up to the 2015 Rugby World Cup. The posts were somewhat popular and I went 13 for 20 on my final pool predictions but it wasn’t all that it could be. I tried a style of writing that wasn’t myself and the editor of the blog required that all blogs have pictures in it, something that I didn’t really want to do at the time. I quit and restarted multiple times before cutting ties at the start of the year. I still need to scratch the blogging itch so here I am again.

sinbinsports will provide you with a whole lot of takes on things you may have thought of but never had a platform to say anything about. It will also provide you with some insight into the College Rugby Championships going on later this month, as well as Olympic rugby and the eventual RWC2019. So here we go. Time to get sent off.*

*I’m still working on a tagline, let me know in the comments if you can think of anything better than that. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

 

Four Most F’d Up Christmas Songs

This is one of my favorite blogs, it is also one of my first. Enjoy!

Salsa Speaks

As it is the holiday season, I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of Christmas music everywhere. Now as an alum of a Catholic University, I love Christmas. However, I have some issues with a few songs that get radio/Pandora/xm play. Below is my list and reasoning of the Four Most Fucked Up Christmas Songs+1 bonus song.

Sidenote: While trying to find all of the videos for this blog I saw a whole lot of Alvin and the Chipmunks and Michael Bublé singing these songs. What a niche market to appeal to Michael. You aren’t a cartoon chipmunk homie, expand your market you crazy Canadian bastard.

1. “All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth”

“Gee if I could only have my two front teeth, then I could wish you Merry Christmas. It seems so long since I could say Sister Susie sitting on a thistle.”

Now this song isn’t particularly…

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