As Chris Coleman stood on the sidelines of the Collegiate Men's Rugby Florida Cup championship game Sunday with his swollen elbow in a sling and his nose plugged to stop the bleeding, he strategized about how to take off his jersey.
"This will be an ordeal," said Coleman, a 21-year-old Spanish senior and member of the UF Rugby Football Club.
He was injured in the first half of the UF vs. University of Central Florida game.
UF defeated UCF to win the Florida Cup for the third consecutive year.
The match was the culmination of an annual two-day tournament that helps gauge how well Florida teams are playing, said Chris Hannmann, club president and industrial engineering fifth-year.
Rugby is a combination of soccer and football without pads.
Players sprint up and down the 100-by-70-meter pitch.
The top four Florida teams were invited to this weekend's tournament. Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University joined UCF and UF for a total of five 80-minute games.
Before the championship game, the teams huddled separately on the pitch, shouting pep talks peppered with profanity.
About 100 people, team members included, attended.
At halftime, the Florida players gathered in the shade.
The team was winning but having trouble determining where the referee's off-sides line was, Coleman said.
An off-sides violation occurs when two players are on the ground vying for the ball. If their team members approach those players too closely, they receive a penalty.
The UF team returned to the pitch renewed.
With about 18 minutes left, biology senior Josh Nicdao broke away from the UCF players and ran for about 80 meters with the ball.
He leaped and rolled into the in-goal area, scoring in what the coaches called the best play of the game.
Florida won 31-13. Other UF scorers were Mike Breske, Marcus Ruecker, Paul Scott and Matt Nakamura.
"We were already up in the first half, so I knew we would come out with some fire in the second half and bring it home," said Nicdao, 22.
UF coaches Ken Simmons and Gary Byrne had hoped but not expected to win.
"We recovered from the penalties and the mistakes, trusted each other and wound up winning and taking charge of the game," Byrne said.
Simmons, who is also the Florida Rugby Union Collegiate Director, presented the UCF team with a runner-up plaque and the UF players with the trophy.
FAU beat FIU in the Plate Championship, so the ranking results of the tournament were UF, UCF, FAU, FIU.
Though the UF players went to Mother's Pub and Grill with the UCF team afterward, they do not have much time for celebration.
At practice Tuesday, they will switch from 15s, a type of rugby play in which there are 15 players on the field, to 7s, in which there are only seven people.
This style of play can be more challenging because every player must cover a larger area, Hannmann said.
The UF team will play in the USA Rugby Men's and Women's College Sevens National Championship in December.
"They're prepared to lay it out for UF," Byrne said.
The UF Rugby Football Club defeated UCF for the third consecutive year during the Collegiate Men's Rugby Florida Cup on Sunday.
