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Show ideal! 1m Rfctas against the rugged Salt Lake Polynesians next Saturday in Logan, a mighty rough opponent to do any re-grouping against. What must be done will have to be accomplished before the game. Park City has the horses to beat the Polynesians if the bad case of "refereeitis" can be cured in time. SALT LAKE 19, PARK CITY 16! Some advise us that it is possible pos-sible to accept defeat grace-fullly. grace-fullly. Saturday at South Field in Provo, Park City Rugby Football Foot-ball Club suffered a defeat without with-out a particle of grace. The "Muckers" somehow managed to find a way to parlay a seve-point seve-point lead with five minutes remaining re-maining in the game into a bitter three-point loss. Salt Lake City R.F.G. was the opponent and beneficiary of Park City's late game blunders, blund-ers, bleeding out a 19-16 victory. vic-tory. In sport one of the most highly admired aspects of a team or a player is a com-from-behind charge to the winner's win-ner's circle. Probably the least-admired quality a team or a player may possess is the propensity to "choke" or give a exercise in abject senselessness senseless-ness which cost the 'muckers" the game came at the 55 minute min-ute mark with Park City fully in charge, 16-9. Whether it was Park City's arrogance, over-confidence, or perhaps the euphoria of being in a winning role at the moment which cost them the win, it is extremely difficult to speculate. The facts are that Salt Lake was given a penalty kick on Park City's twenty-five yard line. Instead of a c c e p t i n g the referee's ref-eree's decision and setting up a defense, a good portion of the Muckers picked that moment to bicker over the call. As rugby followers know, the game doesn't stop when a penalty kick is awarded. Salt Lake's alert break-away Bill Terrell tap-kicked the ball and races past the sutupefield Park City players for a try while they were still moaning pit- eously about the referee's decision. de-cision. That made the score 16-13 with four full minutes remaining. remain-ing. Re-charged Salt Lake quickly picked up the attack once again, finding themselves suddenly well within victory range. The inevitable happened just a moment later. Salt Lake won the ball from the lineout on Park City's 20-yard line, started a backfield movement and blew past the shocked "Muckers" for the winning score. The future is cloudy for the home rugby side after such a searing defeat. It remains to be seen if Park City can regroup re-group and learn from its glaring mistake. Team Captain Terrell Smith stated quite vigorously after the game: "We're goingto talk to these guys. I'll never play with 15 referees again." The Park City squad runs up game away. And "choke" is exactly what Park City did. Not to cheapen Salt Lake's victory, the A io no-led squad never did give up, even when behind be-hind by nine points. And when Santa Claus arrived on the scene, Salt Lake didn't hesitate to open up the presents. Park City's loss was extremely ex-tremely dissappointing in that the 'Muckers' were by far the superior clubfor 55 out of 60 minutes. With the pack turning in another aggressive game and the back line playing well both offensively and defensively. Park City surged to leads of 4-0, 8-3, 12-3 and 16-9. Terrell Smith, Bill Bentley, John Landon "and Don Sturgess scored trys, all but Bentley's coming in the first half, a period that ended with Park City in command, 12-3. Landon once again proved his versatility by performing well at fullback, scoring a try on the recovery of his own up-and-under kick. It must be added that Park City's regular fullback didn't bother to show for the game, saying later that "I'm tired of playing fullback. I knew you would have to find somebody else if I didn't play." How true. But how devastating. Park City was forced to play an inexperienced in-experienced man in the back-field. back-field. This factor came vitally into play late in the game when Salt Lake discovered Park City's rookie and continually kicked him the ball. But the blunder the critical |