The Axemen Man of the Match (MVP) receives dinner for two courtesy of Outback Steakhouse.

July 28th. CT. Wildcats
Hodges Stadium, UNF, Jacksonville, FL.

Bob Knoepfel showed why he is one of the most versatile and resilient players on the Axemen roster. After a rough start to the 2007 season that seen him sidelined with a severe head injury he returned to the playing field like he had something to prove. Not only did he run in a great try for the Axemen against the Wildcats, he punished them in defense and continued to torment them with his powerful runs. He has now become a true utility player, able to play just as well in the forwards as he does in the back line. He continues to make a push for consideration for the USA team later this year.

July 14th. CT. Warriors
War at the Shore. Sea Isle City, NJ.

Perry Vaught again lead the Axemen with example. He consistently made line breaks and his fake passes and side steps allowed many offloads to support runners for extra yards all game long. He was also solid in tackles and played a text book game. His organization on the field continues to be the building block for the Axemen to improve from and he is not afraid to put his body on the the entire game to help the team.

June 30th vs. Bucks County Sharks
Shark Park, Levittown, PA.

Craig Howitt once again showed why he is a consistent starter on the Axemen team with another solid performance during a tough day out for the Florida side. Although the Sharks capitalized on most of the Axemen mistakes they got nothing easy from the big prop forward. In addition to putting on the two biggest hits on the day he also ran with plenty of passion in offense. Craig is always a handful for any defense and his ability to offload in tackles increases to be a weapon the Axemen are trying to use more.

June 23rd vs. Washington DC Slayers
Hodges Stadium, UNF, Jacksonville, FL.

Will Fletcher was back to his old form this game with consistent runs from dummy half that gained plenty of ground each time. His cover defense was also perfect with no missed tackles all game and a couple of try saving ones when it was needed. He also scored 2 tries during the game. One coming with his signature "dive" over top of 2 Slayer defenders and another after a great support run for Akarika Dawn that allowed him to take a great pass and go in under the posts

June 16th vs. Bucks County (formerly New Jersey) Sharks
Hodges Stadium, UNF, Jacksonville, FL.

Matt Thornton continued his great form for the Axemen and again dominated the tackles. In addition to topping the Axemen tackle count he also got the Axemen off to a great start with an opening try in the first minutes of the game. He then continued to be more than a handful for the Sharks defense with his powerful runs.

June 9th vs. Washington DC Slayers
Wallenburg Park. National Mall, DC.

Matt Henderson continued his great form from last week to make an early impression on the Axemen Coach. With a great try coming at a key moment in the game and his text book tackling style, this rookie is quickly making a name for himself in the Axemen ranks.

June 2nd, Axemen vs. Aston DSC Bulls
DSC Field, Aston, PA.

Aaron "Drago" Sane started the 2007 season much like he ended the 2006 one. With much of the game crumbling around him in the opening game against the Aston Bulls, Drago kept running hard with ball and tackling with great ferocity. He had a mistake free game which was a great start for this powerful forward in the 2007 campaign.

SEE BELOW HERE FOR THE 2006 SEASON MAN OF THE MATCH AWARDS
Jacksonville Axemen vs. New Jersey Sharks. July 22nd, 2006. Man of the Match was
Aaron "Drago" Sane.

Aaron Sane continued his consistent form in the Axemen's close loss to the Sharks. He has become one of the Stalwarts of the Axemen forwards and will always put his hand up to run the ball forward. His form has improved with every game and with him now running into defenses with full confidence, he is a force for them to try and stop. His defense is also consistent with him rarely missing tackles and with his good speed for such a big man he has little trouble running down opposition players. He has good ball handling skills and is one of the Axemen that runs with pure aggression every time he gets the ball. With his tell tale teeth clinched and glare of determination, he lets the opposition defense know they are only moment away from having their hands full trying to stop him making huge gains up the field.

Jacksonville Axemen vs. Glen Mills Bulls. July 15th, 2006. Man of the Match was Fremont Latimer

Fremont Latimer played a game full of heart and determination against the Glen Mills Bulls. In a game that seen him match up against guys much bigger than him, he gave be nothing less than 100% in both attack and defense. He had plenty of good runs both into traffic and around the outside of the defense when he had the ball. He also played a very solid game in defense with some great one on one tackles on the bigger Glen Mills players. He continued his great 2006 form in setting up two of the Axemen tries with some great runs near the line followed by a quick play the ball. Fremont, who was one of the last signing for the Axemen is proving he was well worth the wait.

Jacksonville Axemen vs. Delaware Mantarays. July 8th, 2006. Man of the Match was Bob Knoepfel

Bob had a great game and opened the day with a crunching tackle on the first Mantarays player to touch the ball. His dominant tackles kept coming all game and his speed for such a big man was put to use at times and he had no trouble getting around the field to bring down runners. In attack he had some great runs and broke the line on a number of occasions and also offloaded and run support play very well. Although he spent 10 minutes in the Sin Bin for a small altercation he played at 100% for the entire time he was on the field and made it a very long day for the Mantarays players. Bob secured his spot on the team to travel to Glen Mills this weekend for the toughest match on the Axemen schedule this season.

 

Jacksonville Axemen vs. Washington DC Slayers, June 24th, 2006. Man of the match was awarded to Ricky Brown

Ricky Brown walks back to the Axemen end of the field after scoring a great Try.

Ricky Brown is one of the biggest men on the Axemen Roster and he used every bit of his size to dominate the Slayers during the game. Ricky moved to Jacksonville from Scotland after a many years of a great Rugby Union career at a very high level and also a year playing Rugby League. Ricky brings a lot of experience to the Axemen team and his aggression during the game often brings the best out of those around him. He never takes a backward step and he was at his devastating best during this game. He had multiple runs that broke the gain line and many that allowed him to offload to support runners. He also put himself in a great position to take a short offload and crash over for a try late in the second half. His defense was also superb during the game with a tally of tackles in the twenties and many of those were spectacular hits on some big men. He also made it his goal to "take care" of a few of the Slayer forwards that had made some good runs against the Axemen early in the game. He also cover tackled well and his stop on one of the Slayers players right on halftime was one of the biggest hits of the season.

Jacksonville Axemen vs. Philadelphia Fight June 17th, 2006. Man of the match was awarded to Rich Alleger.

Rich Alleger making a diving tackle to save a try during the game.

Rich put up a strong case to secure his selection for the remainder of the season with a faultless performance against the fight this weekend. He made multiple double tackle in sets and found numerous holes to run through and also made line breaks and off loads to allow his team mates to run riot at time during the 48 to 26 thumping of the Fight. He also impressed as a team leader during times when both Spinner Howland and Perry Vaught were off the field. He made good decisions and found ways to direct the Axemen around the paddock. The Axemen coach was overly impressed with the aggression he displayed in dominating players much bigger than him in tackles. He has put his body on the line every week this season and he really went above that today. Rich will continue to take a leadership role on the field in future games and he is fast becoming a figure in the Axemen on field decision making.

Jacksonville Axemen vs. New Jersey Sharks. June 10th, 2006. Axemen man of the match was awarded to Aaron Peacock

Aaron Peacock making one of his line breaks and getting a clean offload away to a support runner.

Aaron made the most of the opportunity to make the starting 13, with Ricky Brown out due to injury, to cement a place in next weeks starting team. Aaron made solid tackles all day long and not only did he fill his role as a supporting runner for the bigger forwards, he took plenty of ball into contact and made some very effective gains. He had 3 line breaks during the game and one which allowed him to offload to Patrick Cox and then run support to take a pass back from the big center and finish the 40 yards to the try line untouched. He displayed to the coach that he has some speed to burn in open spaces. Aaron also earned a point in the MVP race form the Referee for his performance during the game and the stat the coach is most impressed with is his mistake free play all day. He was only a handful of Axemen that can claim that after a rough first half from most of the team. Aaron will join hard hitting Aaron “Drago” Sane, who also had a strong day against the sharks, to make up the second row against the Philly Fight this Saturday.

Jacksonville Axemen vs. Glen Mills Bulls. June 3rd, 2006. Axemen man of the match was awarded to William Fletcher

Will Fletcher is the third rookie in as many weeks to win the Man of the Match Award for the Jacksonville Axemen. William came to the Axemen from the University of North Florida (UNF) after only 3 seasons of Rugby Union. He is the fastest player on the Axemen squad and processes an amazing side step and direction change at speed, and he put both to great use during the game against the Bulls.

Will returned almost every kick and was able to get across the 20 meter line every time before being tackled. He also didn’t miss a single tackle all day long. With him giving away as much as 100 pounds to some of the Glen Mills forwards he had no problem making safe effective tackles on all of them for the entire game.

He also put his hand up and run plenty of flash plays form dummy half to take pressure of the forwards and was again able to get well beyond the gain line each time.

The Axemen coach had no problem with his choice as the Man of the Match and commented that “It is going to a huge effort from anyone to take the fullback spot from Will. I was nothing short of amazed at what he did in his first ever game of Rugby League”.

 

Jacksonville Axemen vs. Delaware Valley Mantarays, May 27th, 2006. Axemen man of the match was awarded to Frank Radosta

Frank Radosta is one of two players that come to the Jacksonville Axemen from the Daytona Rugby Union Club. With competition for starting spots on the Axemen at a high level Frank wasted no time in impressing the Axemen coach with his speed. It was only 3 minutes into the game that he got his chance to show what he has to offer by taking a ball out wide and running around all the defenders to put in a try. This in itself was a stunning achievement given this was his first ever Rugby League game. He would not however rest with a single try for the day and in the space of only 20 minutes he added 2 more tries and also carried out the kicking duties for the day in place of the injured Perry Vaught. Not only did this take his game day points total to 20 he also tackled well in defense and showed no problem taking on guys twice his size.

Frank was awarded 3 points in the AMRNL MVP race by the referee Ryan McGough and coach Spinner Howland could not have agreed more with his choice.

With all of this in his rookie game Frank will see plenty of game time during the season and if he improves on this performance he will become one of the stars of the team.

 

Jacksonville Axemen vs. DC Slayers. May 20th, 2006.
Axemen man of the match was awarded to Taco Pope and Apple Pope

  
Although this was both players rookie game and both have only 8 weeks of practice and scrimmage under their belts, it became obvious in the first minutes that both would cement a place on the Axemen team.  Using their American Football background, both “The Popes” tackled with unrivaled ferocity and speed. Each of them tallied over 30 tackles for the game and both made very few mistakes.  Taco Pope was one of only 2 Axemen players to play the full 80 minutes and his last tackle was as hard as his first. He proved very quickly to the Axemen coach that he would set the standard for the workload that the rest of the team is to put in this season. He also run well with the ball and supported the bigger forwards well to put extra yards on the end of many plays.  Apple Pope tackled with the same amount of power as his older brother and he also racked up an impressive tally. The Axemen coach had placed Apple in the key role of Halfback and Hooker for his first game and although he made two rookie mistakes, one a penalty for a high stiff arm to an opponents face and a dropped ball, he redeemed himself with great support running and also barged over the line to become the first try scorer for the Axemen and cementing a place in team history.