Potomac Athletic Club flanker Greg Suellentrop is RUGBYMag.com’s Men’s Club Player of the Week after his four-try performance for PAC against Norfolk.

PAC went into the match cognizant of the fact that a year ago they were denied the top spot in the Mid-Atlantic league due to a last-second penalty goal loss to Norfolk. Suellentrop missed that game due to injury, but said everyone remembered that game, and wanted to make a statement in this one.

The flanker did much of the talk with his play, accounting for more than half of his team’s points in the 39-8 victory.

“Generally I don’t get that many,” Suellentrop said. “And to get four against a team of Norfolk’s caliber was huge.”

His first came off a set play that the club has been working on all season. The player started an attack that maintained through the phases, and Suellentrop was working off the ball in support of the backline when he took a pass and scored in the corner.

The second try came from a lineout and maul that PAC drove from the 22 before Suellentrop touched it down. His third was as support on No. 8 Hannibal Vaivao’s eightman pick. The flanker just followed his back row mate and picked from the ruck and scored.

And in the final try, several phases by the PAC players sucked in the defense, leaving some space in the midfield for Suellentrop to race through.

“A lot of structured play led to me being able to have the tries,” he said. “It was a lot of good teamwork.”

For the 28-year-old, 6-1 flanker, this season has a lot of promise.

“Coming back from the summer you often see a lot of new faces,” he said. “But we’ve come together and we’re feeling very strong. So far, so good, but we have more to learn.”

Born in America, Suellentrop followed his family to England when he was young and started playing rugby for the International School of London in Surrey at 14. He played against English schools and other schools catering to ex-pat children.

“I got a good foundation in the game,” he said. He finished high school in Dallas, where he also played, before playing and studying at Georgetown. As a Hoya he was a Mid-Atlantic all-star and led the team to an appearance at the national DII college semifinals.”

Now he’s looking for more glory with PAC.

“My main focus right now is helping PAC win a national championship,” he said. “And winning that game against Norfolk was big for us.”

In a pair of articles this week, I made inorrect statements regarding Cal's stance on USA Rugby's college 7s national championship.

Per Cal head coach Jack Clark, the Bears are not playing in the Pacific 7s (aka Pac 12 7s) qualifier because of prior on-campus commitments. They will, however, play at California 7s, another qualifier, Oct. 29. Will they accept an automatic bid to nationals if they win, or an at-large if they don't? Clark says making a decision now about those possibilities would be premature, since they've not yet qualified or been invited.

Clark also said Cal is committed to playing 7-a-side rugby in the fall, and that in future years the Bears may well play in multiple autumn tournaments. He also said timing of nationals is not ideal for Cal, as the championships begin the Friday of finals week in Berkeley.