Photo by Wandoo Makurdi Brian Leima stole this inbound pass from the AFC Harrogate team, but Harrogate robbed Quantico of a win with a last-second try to tie the match.

Quantico hosted AFC-Harrogate’s rugby team on base for its two-game North American tour; the first of which was played against the Hooligans at Barnett Field June 24, and which ended in a 24-24 tied game.

‘‘Definitely well satisfied,” Gareth Northam, captain of the Army team, said, summarizing his team’s performance. ‘‘We started out strong, getting the first points on the board. They tried to hit us back being stronger and obviously a lot older than us. To come over today and get away with a draw is more than what we could’ve asked for. We didn’t expect to win, but [we’re] definitely happy with that.”

Just before the match started, Northam said his team would try to compensate for the Hooligans’ physical advantage by making use of its speed to tire the older players.

‘‘It’s going to be a huge factor,” Hooligans coach Jon Jacobs had said about the age difference. ‘‘I think because they’re young and they’re anxious ... I’m expecting them to come out with absolutely no holds barred and ... I’m expecting them to have a few breakaways.

‘‘I think that we’re going to be slow to get to our game plan initially, but I told my guys the key for us is just control,” continued Jacobs.” If we can control the ball, if we can just maintain possession and not let them have possession, we’ll be fine. But the moment we give up possession and allow one of those speedsters to head around the sides, then we’re going to be hurt.”

Much of Jacobs’s prediction played out exactly as he called it. Army Harrogate scored its first try just two minutes into the game, with Robert ‘‘The Worm” Wormald evading and tearing past two Hooligans. It was the first of three tries for ‘‘The Worm,” who turned out to be the game’s most electric player, scored.

Quantico was able to maintain possession of the ball long enough to recover with three tries of its own before halftime, and long enough to keep the ball away from Wormald and his team. The Hooligans scored a fourth-straight try shortly after the start of the second half, and looked well on its way to an easy victory; that wasbefore Harrogate found the Worm again.

Hurting Quantico’s defense on the right side of the field, Wormald’s comeback strategy entailed the same thing: take the pass in the backfield and outrun everyone on the field. When defenders got close enough to stop him, and with no teammate close enough to pass to, Wormald just kicked the ball forward — the only legal way of moving the ball forward without a lateral or backward pass first — got rid of his defenders, who were now headed toward the ball, and outran them once again to get to the ball first.

On the final drive, and with his team down a try and conversion (similar to football’s extra point), Wormald repeated the same play to score yet again. Though Harrogate had missed all its previous conversions, Zack Willis wasn’t going to be denied the chance to secure the tie for his team. Willis icily converted on the kick as his teammates jumped in the air in celebration.

‘‘Speed kills,” Jacobs said commenting on Wormald’s dominating performance, especially on the final play. ‘‘He had a good angle and he was able to draw thedefense in; and as soon as he saw the defense place in, just took a step inside and that’s very hard to defend.

‘‘Very, very fast-paced, and couldn’t have ended better,” Jacob’s said, adding that he was happy with the way the Hooligans played. ‘‘For my guys, we’ve got a month of before we start practicing for the Matrix season so this was a good way to rekindle the fire and just get the guys hungry for the fall.”

Jacobs mentioned before the match that winning was not the paramountobjective of his team. Jacobs said the Hooligans wanted to give the youngsters a good run to better prepare them for the second match against West CarrollMarauder’s RFC in New Windsor, Md.

‘‘It’s definitely prepared us,” said Northam. ‘‘This is our first game we’ve ever played together so this is just really a test match for [the next match,] and playing the bigger side I figure would help a lot more since we’re going to play people more our own size.”

‘‘Our battalion [leader] back in Harrogate served in Quantico and he had a contact, Lt. Col. Jacobs,” Capt. Brad Pino, the team’s manager explained on how the relationship was fostered. ‘‘I called Lt. Col. Jacob and arranged for them to come here again, and this team offered us a game and we accepted it.”

Jacobs commended the hospitality of the base, under the coordination of Bobby Brown, the base athletic director and the Marine Corps Community Services, in accommodating the group and granting access to facilities on base.

‘‘It’s been phenomenal; the coordination with support folks aboard here on base to get them launched because ... they wouldn’t have been able to do some of the activities that they’ve been able to do if they hadn’t been able to come on base,” Jacobs said about the coordination in hosting the foreigners. ‘‘So the fact that we were able to open our arms to another military organization is great.”