New Zealand Rugby defeats USA Rugby All-Americans 23-20

Headed over to Steuber Rugby Stadium today catch the USA Rugby College All-Americans final stop on their tour against New Zealand.

After the National Anthems of both countries, the New Zealanders performed their traditional haka.

The game proved to be an exciting matchup with New Zealand barely pulling out the win 23-20.

Coming down to the final play...is that four against one?

If you thought the haka looked crazy cool before... after the game they repeated the haka shirtless. Amazing!!

USA Rugby DI College Championship Semi-Finals

Headed over to Steuber Rugby Stadium today for the USA Rugby DI College Championship Semi-Finals.

The DI College championship included Women: Penn State vs Virginia and BYU vs Army. And for the Men: Bowling Green vs UCSB and Harvard vs Davenport.

As the official photographer for USA Rugby, I had to make sure I captured some great action for their facebook page updates and stock images in hopes of making sales. It was great to have Zach Sanderson out there shooting with me all day. He was a huge help in providing great images to USA Rugby. We spilt sides of the field so every play was able to be covered. And he captured some great shots! And even Lara Brucker came by after her final to shoot a game before heading back to Berkeley because she graduates tomorrow!! Congratulations Lara!

I love shooting rugby, the atmosphere, the fans, the players, the intensity, the variety of plays, the lack of helmets and pads, it's just a great sport to photograph! Every game can guarantee you some kind of gritty plays and some nice feature opportunities.

Headed back tomorrow for the the final Penn State Women vs Army and UCSB men vs Davenport!

All photos up and available for purchase at CollegiatePhotos.com

Cal Rugby Team and Captains

Headed over to Witter Rugby Field today for team and captains photos. When we took the team photo earlier this year (blog post here) one player was unable to make it due to a class conflict. Turns out he is now a likely candidate to earn a varsity letter. All letter winners receive their letter with a team photo, so it was critical for him to be included.

Coach Tom Billups was on hand to open the gate so I could park along Witter Rugby Field, a wonderful convenience to not worry about meters or lugging all my gear up the hill! As always, he also helped determine location, move the bench, arrange the players, coordinate "intense" expression vs smiles, and keep everyone in line, along with Head Coach Jack Clark. Said it many times, but in case you haven't read all my posts, Cal Rugby is one of the best operated programs I've worked with!

GBS intern Lara Brucker joined for the shoot to help set up, serve as a test subject for lighting and bench placement and most critically let me borrow her 24-70mm since my wide angle is with Canon Professional Services getting repaired right now. I could/did shoot the team photo with my 50mm (man, I love that lens!) but it would have been tough to shoot the captains photos with it.

Last team photo day we were unable to take captains photos because we had to get off the field for the scheduled football practice, but today we had the opportunity to photograph the co-captains. Derek Asbun, Jason Law, and Blaine Scully.

And vice-captains, Sean Gallinger, James Bailes, Tom Rooke, and Dustin Muhn.

Taking the captains photos I was catching some flare from the 10am sun, so Lara assisted as a make shift  hood extender, holding her hand near my lens to block the sun flare. Can see the flare below, by Derek Asbun's leg on the left, Blaine Scully's face on the right, and next to "guest" on the score board. Probably looked silly as it took some time to make sure Lara's hand blocked the flare but wasn't also in the photo (top right) but made a huge difference once we got it!

I would love to have a chance to have a full portrait session with the athletes as all the co/vice/full captains photos were literally taken within 8 minutes (can you believe that?!) in order to squeeze them in without interrupting practice too much. One location, one light, one set up. Boom, boom, boom!

Full set up: http://www.goldenbearsports.com/2010-2011/rugby/teamandcaptains

Cal Rugby Team Photo

Headed over to Witter Rugby Field today for the Cal Rugby team photo. Wanted to incorporate the new west side sign, especially because it reads Witter Rugby Field (misleading considering rugby won't be playing there in the next three years while it's temporarily a turf field during Memorial Stadium upgrades). This was challenging not only because of the sun but because of the less than pretty portable construction unit in the background.

So opted for a side view. Thanks to the players for moving the soccer net and bringing over a bleacher.

And Coach Billups for directing all the men.

The rugby program is so organized, it's a real pleasure to work with them. Even in tiny tight spaces, like this one, to catch some of the men for head shots who we were unable to photograph in November.

But you would never know the surroundings from the head shots. Seen below the Hodson twins Colin and Ryan Hodson.

Full set: http://www.goldenbearsports.com/2010-2011/rugby/team

HSBC Rugby Sevens

Apart from the USA games and the Cup Final, I'm putting all the other rugby matches I covered into one big post. What an exciting tournament!

The "normal" 15 players rugby, aka rugby union, is a very thrilling sport, and rugby sevens is no different.

It's exciting because it's only seven minute halves (compared to forty). Conversions are dropped kicked (compared to place kicked). Three player scrums (compared to eight) and the team who scores subsequently kicks off to the conceding team. The difference in play, from my view, is there are fewer defenders, so missed tackles are unrecoverable, and a quick runner who can break away, can be unstoppable.

There also seems to be more lateral passing.

Though rugby union was eliminated from Olympic competition after the 1924 games, rugby sevens was voted into olympic games in 2009 and will makes it's debut in the 2016 games. So exciting!

Being a fan of soccer, I like the set up of having a club team as well as an international team.

Though the uniform kits are obviously different in design, I like that Argentina still has those famous baby blue and white stripes as their soccer team.

Conversely, New Zealand's rugby team is officially called the "All Blacks" and the soccer team the "All Whites" Though their kits are similar, the names are different due to a FIFA law that reserved the black stripe for referees, so as a play on words, soccer became the "All Whites".

Since my family recently returned from a trip to New Zealand with my aunt, uncle, sister and her Kiwi boyfriend, and brought me back an "All Blacks" pen, I was very exciting to catch them live!

Though it appears another photographer cheering for Kenya over New Zealand.

I consider rugby an incredibly masculine sport considering the pad-free tackling, frequency of bleeding, and the general "beast mode" of the players, but that's not to say it's a man's sport.

Yeah, Canada vs the Netherlands in the women's final, throwing up the stiff arm, you go girl!

And of course, no sport is complete without cheerleaders.

All in all, an awesome tournament!

Full set up: http://photos.kelleylcox.com/usasevens/lasvegas2011

USA Rugby Sevens vs Japan - Shield Final

After the Cup Final was the Shield Final with USA vs Japan. A great win for the USA Sevens!

Zach Test had a great try.

The fun was really in the fans, especially the bunnies.

And the players walked around the entire stadium postgame, thanking the fans for their support, shaking hands, taking pictures, and autographing everything.

Some even jumped up to the stands to take a picture WITH the fans.

Full set up: http://photos.kelleylcox.com/usasevens/lasvegas2011/usavsjapan