It was early morning on Saturday, September 4 at Amity Regional High School in New Haven, Connecticut; and on this rather overcast Fall day in October, crowds of canines of all ages had gathered around the 100 metre-deep rectangular sports field to witness the opening match of the rugby season: Amity Regional Rugby Football Club, or Amity Regional RFC, versus Cheshire RFC. Amity RFC were wearing their yellow and purple striped jerseys, and Cheshire RFC were wearing orange.

Both teams were training hard in their warm up drills that were essential for preparation for the upcoming game: Passing drills, hitting tackle bags and pads, lineouts, scrums, and performing set plays.  Both their head and assistant coaches watched on carefully and occasionally commanded the players in the middle of their drills to get them working hard towards perfection.

After almost an hour of warm up, the head referee blew his whistle and called all players over to him. He asked them to line up in a straight line and get on their knees so that he could inspect the studs of their boots.

"What does he need to do this for, 'kay?" Mooch asked Tramp, who was next to him.

"He needs to ensure that the studs on our boots are legal." Tramp replied. "Like, for example, if someone's studs are too sharp or too steel, they could risk serious injury to other players; such as major cuts to the skin or broken jaws if kicked. Therefore they are classified as illegal and unless they change their boots, they will not be allowed to play."

"Makes perfect sense." Mooch responded. "Would not want to carry an uneasy burden of sending someone to hospital with long-term injury because of one's negligence."

Tramp replied by shaking his head, agreeing with Mooch's point.

After the referee inspected everyone's boots, he declared that all studs were legal and every team member would be allowed play. He then called over Amity RFC captain Dreamer Forsburg and the captain of Cheshire RFC to perform the coin toss.

"Dreamer makes the call." said the referee as he tossed up the quarter.

"Tails." Dreamer replied.

As the coin dropped to the ground, all three canines looked at it. It had landed tails-up as Dreamer had hoped.

"Amity wins the toss." The referee said, looking at the toss winner; Dreamer. "Which end of the field?"

"South, please."

"Amity will run to the south side first." the referee said again. "Now, when I make my calls, Amity will be called 'purple', and Cheshire will be called 'orange'. Clear?"

Both captains nodded.

"Alright then; captains shake paws and let's have a clean match. Good luck to you both."

Dreamer and the Cheshire captain shook paws and said 'good luck' to each other before heading back to the team sheds, where their fellow teammates and coaches had gone back into and were waiting for their team leaders to come in.

As Dreamer came into the 'home side' room at the shed to join his team, Reede huddled them up. As in the rules of the game, 22 of the players were dressed to play while the remaining eight wore their team pants and jackets and as representatives, or ambassadors of the RFC, they were in support of their teammates. 

While they were all doing their final preparations before the start of the game, an 80's glam rock song, selected by Scamp from his iPad, was playing on the iPod docking station. He had selected this as a means of getting the team psyched up for the game. The song was Rev It Up by Vixen:

We were just startin' out on a dream,
Young enough to believe
Everyone was on our side,
And no one would deceive

But sometimes the truth gets served on a knife,
You gotta stand up and fight
We turned to each other and kicked it in gear,
To earn our rock n' roll right

Whoa-oh-in a world full of heartache,
jealousy wears a friendly face
Woah-oh-we can hold on, 
you can't keep a fast car out of the race

(Chorus)
Give it all you got, rev it up, rev it up
Push it to the top, rev it up, rev it up
If anyone tries to hold you back
Don't let 'em run you off the track
Give it all you got, rev it up

Burnin' with the hope of the innocent,
Ready to own tomorrow
We were going to set the nights on fire,
But doubt pierced like an arrow

Whoah-oh-when no one's in your corner,
Dig down deep and you'll find your pride
Woah-oh-floor it all the way,
What's behind the wheel can't be denied

(Chorus)

Every fighter takes a fall
But don't give up tryin'
Sometimes you fly, sometimes you crawl
One step at a time

Whoa, hold on tighter,
When the ride gets a little rough
Don't give in, don't give up

(Chorus)

Rev it up, rev it up
Rev it up, rev it up

While this was playing, the following list written by the coaches on the whiteboard stated the game's lineup for Amity:

STARTING LINEUP

1. PR Carson Trainer; Rottweiler
2. HK Archie McDowd; Labrador
3. PR Mooch Aquila; Sheepdog
4. SR Star Denum; German Shepard 
5. SR Scamp Brown; Schnauzer 
6. FL Jordan Hart; Labrador 
7. FL McGavin Roberts; Kelpie/Doberman 
8. N8 Spanner Blignaut (vc); Great Dane 
9. SH Scratchy Hall; Mongrel 
10. FH Dreamer Forsburg (c); Bloodhound 
11. WG Dani Bageera; Whippet
12. CT Tramp Brown; Schnauzer
13. CT Red Dhalsim; Kelpie
14. WG Sparky Edenia; Mongrel
15. FB Moody Thompson; Border Collie/German Shepard

RESERVES

16. Chapel Bridges; Doberman PR
17. Faulk Dye; Cocker Spaniel SH/CT
18. Taylor Franklin; Great Dane SR
19. Dusty Alminderson; Shiba Inu FH/WG
20. Vivian Prestona; Bloodhound CT/FB
21. Kung Lao; Golden Retriever HK
22. Woody Engelhart; German Shepard FL

UNDRESSED

Kriss Styles; Malamute/Border Collie HK/PR 
Mitch Matata; Whippet/Labrador CT/FB/WG
Oblena Koken; Alsatian SR 
Golden Gate; Greyhound WG 
Stamford Vilaspos; Saluki FL 
Hamden Oiler; St. Bernard PR 
Loni Hart; Labrador SH 
Iva Li; Border Collie/Kelpie FH 

 

"What are we doing, cappie?" Reede, referring to Dreamer as "captain", asked his team leader as he joined the huddle.

"We won the toss and we are heading to the south side of the field." Dreamer replied. "The wind is heading in this direction and so it will certainly be favored conditions for kicking."

"Alright, good thought." Reede replied satisfactorily. He then decided to hand the final words before game time to the team to his leader. "Over to you, now, Dreamer. Do the talking."

"Right, huddle up, team! In a circle, now!" The captain commanded to his players, who all put their arms around each other's shoulders and made a full circle.

"This is the first game of the season, team." Dreamer said, speaking in words of encouragement. "We all performed pretty well in the pre-season, but that time is over. Our real time is now and we are all looking well prepared to take on the real challenge that awaits us. This will be the first time for a lot of us so I understand there will be pressure on us to perform. Just remember that the whole point of game sense training was to get us to play to the conditions of a match situation without failing; and we pretty much aced it. We must also remember our main objectives: Always support the ball runner and at the breakdown, including being ready to receive that potential offload; allow time for forwards to carry the ball for one or two phases before rushing into set plays; keep the passes simple; stay on your marked dog; move the defense early to restrict advantage line breaks; attempt to assist in every tackle, and in doing so hit both the waist and chest to prevent the possible offload; and when scrummaging, focus more on resisting opposition force and holding the scrum up to avoid restarts, collapsing or giving away cheap penalties. By perfecting all of our set objectives, we will be set to play good competitive rugby. It is not just about winning, but about being worthy opponents and a strong rugby unit. Focus on that more that victory, or you will get psychologically put off your game and will then fail to function. Now let's do it. Paws in."

The team leader put his paw in the centre of the circle first and then every other player followed suit.

"One, two, three..." Dreamer lead off.

"AMITY RFC!" Chanted the team loudly that, with the acoustics bouncing off the walls inside the sheds, would allow the outside crowd to clearly hear. They all then lined up from the shed door to get ready to run out onto the field.

Their opponents, being the 'away' team, of course, ran out from their sheds to the field first; and they were greeted by some applause and cheering for the crowd. Some of whom were Cheshire supporters who may have travelled far to witness their team play.

Then Amity RFC ran out from their shed and onto the field; where the audience cheered slightly louder than before as the home team were the favourites, of course. 

Both teams then lined up against each other on the halfway line and shook paws before they broke off and got into their positions for the opening kickoff. As they did so, Scamp and Tramp called the Ex-JD's for a quick huddle to say the final words before playing their first ever rugby match:

"This is it, boys." Scamp encouraged. "I just want to wish you the best of luck. You've trained very hard this past Fall, and now is the time to shine. Remember your training and believe in yourself. I have faith in you all. Now, let's get out there and kick butt!"

"Yeah!" The gang replied, feeling motivated and determined by Scamp's words.

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