April 6th was a busy day for members of the BLRC. The club fielded 6 teams in 4 cities. Both Women’s teams were on the Island, our 3 Blues travelled to Surrey and we had 3 teams at home. The home teams would play in front of a packed house. It was BLOBS day at the club bringing out all the Burnaby Lake Old Boys. Much like my milk shake strangely attracts young men onto my property, Maureen House’s BLOB cookies brings the Alumni out in droves.
Women’s 2nd div: BLRC 17 vs Comox 27
The girls were up early as they had to catch the 6:30am Ferry to make it to Comox in time for kickoff. Crossing the strait always has its challenges, but from all accounts, the trip was a fun one! The team lost a close game to the Kickers 27 to 17. Brandon + Shelby Mattin had big games and tries came from Lauren Bowerman, Ruby Moore-Kalia and Abby Tacal. Kyra Groll was good for one conversion.
Women’s Premier: BLRC 51 vs UVIC 22
The Women would be without Julia Sugawara and Kim Donaldson for this match. Veterans like Laura Harmse and Iona Schamberger would have to step up to lead the team. The first challenge was getting everyone on the 7am ferry…passed with flying colors! This game would mark the 1st time that new BLRC member Abby Goodwin would face her old team and the first time new UVIC player Aly Govorchin would face her old Blue + White squad. The BLRC won handily, but not easily. The fitness of the UVIC ladies kept the BLRC girls on their toes. Solo Blue + White tries came from Taylor “mom must have been good looking” Kapaiwai, Hailey Glendenning, Deb Capps, Gabrielle Hindley, and Becky Querido. Katie Grudzinski and Nancy Radman each scored twice and Gen Gratton added 3 conversions. Next week the Women have a big match against Mainland champs Bayside RFC.
Men’s 3B: BLRC 13 vs Surrey Beavers 23
The 3B’s were on the road in Surrey against a strong team of Beavers. The 3 Blues are led by a handful of veterans in the forwards and a set of fit juniors in the backs. It was a back + forth game with the lead changing hands a few times before Surrey used their depth to grind out the W. BLRC’s lone try came from the dreadlocked Mark Lynch, and the other 8 points came from the foot of Wayne Lawson. The coaches were very pleased by the progress made by many of the younger + U-19 members of the team.
Men’s 3A: BLRC 3 vs Capilano 33
The 3 White’s opened the day at the Lake against a very good Capilano team. The Caps are a club with talent to spare and I believe that their 3rds would defeat many of the Ceili’s Cup 1st div squads. This talent was on display today as the Caps took it to the BLRC from the opening whistle to the closing one. The BLRC weren’t able to build any rhythm as the Caps challenged every breakdown and put relentless pressure on scrum half Casey Evans and fly half Colin Thompson. The BLRC Back row had an impressive tackle count as Flello, Barnert and Menzies were on defense all day. But, you can’t make em all, and when they missed the Caps ran in tries. On a positive note, we would like to welcome back Keegan Fletcher who made an impact in his first game back in the Blue + White.
Men’s 1st Div: BLRC 18 vs Capilano 5
This was an exciting game! The squads were tied for 2nd place going into this game, with Capilano holding the edge after their 8 to 5 victory in October. The BLRC had this match on their radar for weeks knowing that this would go a long way to deciding home field advantage in the playoffs. The 1 st half was a defensive battle with only a Nolan Shelley penalty kick showing on the scoreboard. In the 2nd half the play opened up a bit and VP Angus “Wheels” Fisher took a hard line all the way to the end zone. Colin Thompson converted and then followed up a few minutes later with a penalty kick to make the score 13 to 0. Midway through the 2nd half, Anare Tuidraki atoned for an earlier knock on by reading a Capilano skip pass and taking it all the way to the house for a try. The scoring finished with my MoM, Capilano’s Chris Robinson running in a long try from about the half way point to finish the game. This was the type of game that gets played too rarely in this league and we wish Caps all the best going into the playoffs.
Men’s Premier: BLRC 60 vs Capilano 20
The BLRC faced off against Capilano in October at Klahanie with the Caps coming out on top 21 to 9. The BLRC held a one point lead in the CDI standings entering this game. A victory here combined with an unlikely JBAA loss would push the winning team into 1st place in the Premier League. A great aspect of playing a club like the Caps is their tremendous fan support. Their sideline was full of players + supporters, leading to a great money making day in the BLRC bar. In addition, their supporters “get it”; buying up the game day programs and contributing to the bottle draw fundraiser! Once again, thank you to all the visiting fans and a special thank you to Craig Dalziel!
These 2 teams are similar in many ways and very familiar with each other, having faced off numerous times in the past few years. The front row duos of MacKay + Luca(BLRC) and Ryan + Fiss(Caps) have built an admiration(as close to friendship as Props can have until they surpass the age of 35) over the years that few non front rowers could understand. The teams boast arguably the 2 biggest wings in the league with BLRC’s Laudisio and Caps Zaruba each measuring over 6 foot 3 and hovering around 240lbs. Both are most well known by their #8’s with Capilano’s Glen McKinnon, a modern day Colin McKenzie, being honored as last year’s CDI Player of the Year and BLRC’s Admir Cejvanovic becoming one of the most dynamic players in the CDI. That type of familiarity normally makes for the type of closely contested match we have seen over the years from the 2 teams.
A passionate pre-game speech from BLRC Veteran Steve Batie had the players focused and ready to prove that the results of the past 7 games were not merely a fluke. The first 20 minutes of the match belonged to Joe Dolesau. Joe is known to all coaches in our league, and most know exactly what he’s going to do when the ball gets to him…but stopping him is another matter. On Joe’s 1st try, he split the D and took off from the half before conducting a give + go with Evan Thomas that saw Joe scoring untouched. On the Capilano Kickoff, the ball moved to Joe and he made the big break before the ball eventually ended up in Laudisio’s hands. “The Situation” is hard to stop once he starts going forward and he dotted down between the posts. Joe’s last try of the day may have been the most impressive as he blocked a kick, and ran it in from the fields half way point. Reekie would convert one of the tries and add a penalty before the Caps Matt Simms punished a BLRC penalty for 3 points. After 20 minutes the score was 20 to 3.
The next man on the score sheet was the Capilano 2nd Row Mike MacDonald. He barged through the BLRC defense from in close, bringing the score a little tighter at 20-8. BLRC #14, Matt Alexander then gave Joe a rest and took over the game scoring 2 tries and setting up 2 more. His 1st came on the counter attack as Matt took the ball at the BLRC 10 and juked around a handful of defenders for the try. His 2nd try came minutes later as a string of phases put the ball in his hands with only 1 man to beat. Reekie converted both Alexander tries and the half time score was BLRC 34, Capilano 8.
Off the kickoff, the ball found James Reekie who put the ball to Matt in some space. Matt beat his opposite and the Fullback before offloading to Admir for the try. On the next kick off Big Nate Mantle would crash into the Defense clearing some space for the BLRC backs. The backs would play a game of catch as they worked the ball downfield before Matt put the ball into Evan Thomas hands for a try. The next tally also came from Thomas. As has been documented by the fine editor of BC Rugby News, Evan Thomas has some basketball skills. NO ONE out jumps this guy! Evan was in pursuit of a high “up & under” inside the Caps 22. He challenged for the ball in the air, and came down with it. In addition to B-Ball skills, he’s also blessed with a staggering stiff-arm as the defender found out. Evan put the defender down and trotted in to the end zone untouched.
The stiff-arm seemed to bring some life back into the Capilano’s as they came out hard on the kick off and most of the remaining game belonged to them. Their 2nd try of the day came from Big Adam Zaruba! He took a beautiful cross kick from Nate Rees, and beat his man to score in the corner. The next Capilano score would start with Glen McKinnon and end with Glen McKinnon. The man with the striking strawberry blonde mustache would take the line out ball and follow the play as Zaruba bulled through a handful of would be tacklers before off loading to McKinnon for a try between the posts. A Simms conversion put the score at 55 to 20 heading into the home stretch.
The Capilano team was looking for the bonus point, and they were helped when an unwise decision led to a BLRC yellow card with less than 10 minutes to play. The Caps threw everything they had at the BLRC defence, and spent most of the remaining minutes camped within 10 metres of the BLRC goal line but couldn’t break through. Some staunch defense from Scott Plummer, Doug Breadon and Evan Thomas would deny them a bonus point. Finally the game would end as Cole McQueen picked up a loose Capilano pass and took the ball all the way down the field for the game’s final score. It would end 60 to 20. While all in attendance would agree that the BLRC deserved a win, I think that most would also agree that with the exception of (2) ten minute periods, this game was closely contested. Enough can’t be said about the Capilano’s not giving an inch even though they knew that the chances of a comeback were slim. They were fighting until the end.
Enough also can’t be said about the refereeing. The teams were fortunate to have Chris Assmus assigned to this game. These 2 teams are full of big, fast, high quality Rugby players. There was HARD scrummaging, HARD rucks, HARD tackles, close plays, “cheeky” moves…and I can’t think of any disputed calls from the players, captains or the crowd. More importantly, even though this was a hard game played between (arguably) the biggest rivals in the league where the score got out of hand early, Mr. Assmus never lost control of the game. I can’t recall a single punch, foul play or anything even close to it taking place. The true mark of a great referee!
We look forward to the challenges of this weekend where our Men’s Premier + 1st div squads travel to Oak Bay, our 3 Whites visit our old friends in Kelowna (post game festivities sponsored by Bob Monahan. Boat Race Winners get a helicopter!!) Our 3 Blues head to Richmond, Women’s Prems head to Surrey to take on Bayside, and our Women’s 2nd div battle the Bruins in Maple Ridge.
Many Teams~One Club
