The first half was a tense affair with Brown managing to edge out Walsh with a score of 8-0, thanks to a strategic penalty kick by Co-Captain Raphael Lansonneur '25 at 8:00 and a lineout maul try doted down by Vice Captain Joe Al-Hasso '25 at 27:00. Brown had put the Walsh Cavaliers under pressure through the entire first forty minutes, but were unable to convert a few kicks and had would-be tries held up to limit the lead to two scores.

In the second half, a determined and dangerous Walsh battled back to eliminate the deficit and take the lead from Brown with a penalty kick and a try in the first fifteen minutes of second-half play to knot the score at 8-8. Brown answered only a few minutes later with another penalty kick from Lansonneur to regain a tenous lead.

With Brown ahead 11-8 and threatening to score from a 5M attacking scrum in front of the Walsh posts, the Brown scrum conceded a penalty and the dynamic Walsh scrumhalf Remy Thompson showed incredible awareness with a quick tap & go pressuring the retreating Brown defence and moving the ball into space where the Cavaliers charged away with support in loose play, with four different players touching the ball on the way to scoring a 95M try to regain the lead 15-11 with less than fifteen minutes remaining in the match.

But the Bears had kept the opposition under pressure in attack consistently throughout the match, even when they weren't able to yield points, and five minutes later Brown found themselves in front of the Walsh posts again. With the referee signaling for penalty advantage to Brown, scrumhalf Charm Tuala '28 took a big shot, finding winger Marco Lapierre '28 with a cross-field box kick. Lapierre met the ball and a defender in the air and came down with the game-winning points,

"I saw Charm look up and make eye contact with me, and then we played one more phase and he looked again and that’s when I knew it was on. I trusted he would get it there, we had practiced that every day after practice for weeks and when the ball was in the air I knew I had a chance,"

said Lapierre of the play that put Brown back on top.

There were still about eight minutes of rugby left to play though and Brown needed to protect the one-point lead. Displaying maturity and poise the Bears retained possession for the next five minutes of play while Walsh conceded a string of penalties culminating in a penalty try awarded to Brown when the Walsh hooker intentionally collapsed a Brown maul from a lineout on its way in to score, giving Brown a two-score lead 23-15. Walsh would only touch the ball once more, at a lineout, and the Brown defence again stole possession away, maintaining total control of the concluding moments of the match. A few phases later, flyhalf Isaac Frost would kick the ball into touch and bring about the final whistle.

Head Coach David Laflamme expressed his satisfaction with the victory, highlighting the team's effective strategy,

"Getting past such a strong team as Walsh was a huge victory for us. They are in a bit of a transition year however I know what they are capable of. You give them an inch and they can burn you... Remy Thompson showed us just that. We know that we had to do four main things... 1. Be very structured on defense to disrupt their attack. 2. Not give them clean ball in the lineouts 3. Go after them in the scrum and 4. Execute our own attack using precision and patience. Overall, we achieved all four things with enough success to come out on top."

With an unbeaten record of 9-0, Brown Men's Rugby now looks forward to their next challenge against St. Bonaventure University in the National Collegiate Rugby semifinals on December 7, 2024, at Penn State Berks in Reading, PA. This is the third time in three years that the Bears will meet the Bonnies in the semifinal round of the national tournament. A perennial powerhouse, St. Bonaventure was runner-up to the national championship in 2023, having defeated Brown with a penalty kick on the last play of the match in the semifinal. They were semifinalists in 2022 when Brown defeated them with a penalty kick late in that match to take the lead on the way to a National Championship. In 2021, the Bonnies were National Champions. Looking ahead Coach Laflamme says,

"Our next challenge is doing it all over again in two weeks as we face our rivals for the third year in a row down in PA. we hope to be down in Houston for the conclusion of the season and bring home another National Championship."