The orange series opener took place at URC in Utrecht on Saturday, October 11th 2025 and the results were smashing:
Game 1: HRC – Amsterdam – Fluffy Win
Game 2: HRC – Rotterdam – Fluffy Win
Game 3 : HRC – URC – Loss (⅚) nevertheless a Fluffy Win due to a 2-try penalty to URC for only fielding 1 female player
A beautiful day for HRC Touch: cool weather, no rain, 4 teams, and also a real touch field with lines and all. A first for many and a great experience once your eyes have adjusted to the blue lines.
1.40PM kickoff meant we had time to pick out our favorite shirt and run a few drills to warm up. It also meant we had to play back to back being short a couple of players.
Jan from Wageningen was nice enough to join us as permanent near wing, to complete our team: 2 wings, 3 links and 4 mids. The line up looked like this:
Naelle Lina Ed Lydia Bart Jan
Naelle Lina Joe Claudine Bruno Jan
A series of fast, high-scoring games started strong (Amsterdam scored on their first drive, with an immediate answer from our starting team). Our mids ran dragon drives (or is it drag AND drive?), which had the effect of pushing Amsterdam deep into their own half, and limiting their forays into our 7’s.
Our cascade subbing was tentative at first, and then worked pretty well. We mixed things up a bit in the second game with Lina and Naelle at mid. Our Wageningen soldier Jan suffered from cramps after a heroic touch on the line (try called but it was close) and URC’s team manager Thibaut stepped in to lend a hand for the remainder of the tournament.
A few sharp combos (32 shorts, backdoor fakeouts, a beautiful cut and scoops) for the fluffies and some nice scores.
The last game against URC was our toughest, with hard drives and a couple of breakthroughs from them. Dragons had a good game though, with a late try at the death to make it 5-6.
Thanks to these 3 wins, Fluffy Dragons came away with the bag of oranges, the Haribo treats and the chocolate bar for our full-time ref Samir.
And yes, soon we will have our Touch HRC kits (finally)!
