Here is Walt Brandl’s report on the women’s match versus Capilanos this past weekend…
Both the Burnaby Lake women and the Capilano’s entered Saturday’s game coming off two weeks of lop-sided wins to start the season and both teams realized that the game would be a dose of reality in the face of strong opposition.
Capilano’s, as always, started strong and pinned Burnaby Lake deep in there own end for the first 15 minutes of the game. The Burnaby defense, however, looked strong and despite the proximity to the goal line Capilano’s really didn’t have any clear opportunities to cross.
After weathering the Capilano storm Burnaby Lake worked methodically downfield on the strength of Anna Schnell’s foot, good penetrating runs by the Burnaby Lake centres and solid support work by the Burnaby lake forwards. After a short period of Burnaby pressure, Sabrina Neufeld scored a try running in close support of her partner in the centres, Kary Steele. By the half Burnaby had found its rhythm on both sides of the ball and despite some problems with primary possession and a plethora of offside penalties had maintained the bulk of territory.
In the second half Burnaby, playing to a very simple game plan, effectively shut down the Cap’s forward game, forcing them to run wide into the waiting arms of the Burnaby Lake backline. Here, pressure and sure tackling continually forced turnovers. Ball possession remained about equal but Capilanos would see little of the Burnaby end and nothing inside the Burnaby 22 m. line for the entire second half. Michelle Johnston scored off a 10 metre run from a breakdown to give Burnaby some breathing room at 10-0, 15 minutes into the half and Sabrina Neufeld, again running flawless support angles scored at fulltime to finish the deal at 15-0.
This game marked the first time in over three years that the team took the field without Iona Schamberger at tighthead prop. Ere’n Coyle, with some relief work by Christie Dillabough stepped up to the task and the remainder of the Burnaby pack upped their work rate to compensate for Iona’s production.
After the Thanksgiving bye week the Premier women travel to Connaught Park to play the Meraloma’s.
