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Written by Cody Secker
Sunday, 31 July 2011 15:17 |
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Snake River Outruns CW Bulls in Tacoma |
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Sevens -
Club Sevens
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 It’s always fun to win something. That’s what sports is all about, most of the time. You go out to compete against the best and want to have something rewarding waiting for you at the end, should you win. In this case, it was the Subway Championship Summer Sevens plate and Snake River went out and took it from CW Bulls grasp with a 21-5 win.
Snake River started early off the opening kickoff when they broke through the Bull’s defense and sprinted 60 meters for the first score of the game. Then the Bulls made a mental mistake by kicking the ball too far. The next thing you know, Snake River had caught the ball off a perfect bounce, gotten it through the hands out wide and raced past every Bull defender for a score and early 14-0 advantage.
At the half, the scoreboard read 14-5 with a late try off a pick from a ruck by the Bulls and trying to gain momentum. However, the scoreboard would only be woken up once in the second half when Snake River bulldozed its way in for a score off a pick from a scrum to make it 21-5.
For the rest of the game, it was all about defense and Snake River did a great job of shutting down a lot of the explosive players that the Bulls had. In the end, the plate was taken off its perch and rewarded to its recipients who took it with smiles on their faces and beers in their hands.
“I really wanted to emphasis to work as a unit coming into the game,” Snake River head coach Jeff Turpen. “Our guys took advantage of the overlaps in the defense and their mistakes and that was really the key to us taking home the title today. We played well together and that’s all you can ask for.”
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Written by Patrick McCarry
Sunday, 31 July 2011 00:44 |
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Wolf Pack Edges Blues at Canadian Championships |
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Canada -
Men
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Prairie Wolf Pack avoided the heartbreak of a blown lead after they scored a late try to defeat Ontario Blues in the first round of the Canadian Rugby Championship. The Wolf Pack were looking comfortable at 24-10 before the Blues took advantage of their forwards’ dominance to turn the tie on its head.
Andrew Cho, at hooker, and scrum-half James Buchanan put in outstanding performances, with captain Ryan Smith and Nick Blevins in fine, marauding form in the backline. Duncan Maguire and Kyle Gilmore were the try-scoring stars with two apiece and the clutch kicking of Christian Wolff saw the Wolf Pack home with six points to spare.
The first half suggested an easy win for the Wolf Pack at Calgary Rugby Park as they retained possession and forced errors from the Blues. The score was 17-10 at the break and another try for the home side led to a 14 point lead with 30 minutes left on the clock. However, with a slight wind in their favor and a pack that was imposing its sizeable presence, the Blues stormed back.
A 15-point scoring blitz, which included a well taken try from Seb Pearson, saw the game swing in the Blues’ favor and the score was 25-24 with 10 minutes to go.
“We expected [the Blues] to kick to the channels in the second half but they held onto the ball and forced us back,” said Wolf Pack Head Coach Col Jeffs. “They bashed us at the scrum.”
Jeffs praised the scrambling qualities of a team that lost influential players such as Jeremy Kyne and Nanyak Dala through injury in the first half. The ability to scrap and fight for the ball saw the pressure build on the Blues in the closing stages. With eight minutes to go the Blues squandered possession after a sloppy lineout and the Wolf Pack struck with the clinching score.
Wolff added the extras and a converted try was the requirement if the Blues were to make a final comeback. Their forwards drove them up-field but errand passing was their downfall and the home side held out for a 31-25 win.
“The boys did well,” said Jeffs. “I’m very pleased with the effort and it gives us something to build on.”
Blues manager Mark Winokur said, “There were a number of positives to take from a day that was ultimately disappointing. Our forwards really pushed theirs around and dominated the scrum. We came away with two bonus points too, which may prove vital in a five-game competition. Conor McCann, who is only 18 years old and was in his first CRC game, did excellently at center and was the man of the match. Our biggest problem was turnovers through dropped ball and bad passes. Nonetheless, we go into the next game against BC with optimism.”
Prairie Wolf Pack: 31
Tries: Maguire 2, Gilmore 2, Blevins
Convs: Wolff 2, Marcoux
Ontario Blues: 25
Tries: Piatek, Marshall, Pearson, McCann
Convs: Piatek
Pens: Piatek
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Written by Cody Secker
Sunday, 31 July 2011 15:10 |
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OPSB Returns to Winning Ways |
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Sevens -
Club Sevens
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There’s an old saying that not only applies to sports, but life in general, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Sometimes some re-adjustments are needed, but in the overall picture everything pretty much stays the same. For Old Puget Sound Beach (OPSB), the last two tournaments had gone that well, so they were out to get back in the right direction. They did, by beating Rovers 47-19 and taking home the Subway Championships Summer Sevens Cup.
As always, they started off very quickly by getting the ball into the hands of one of their fastest players in Miles Craigwell and letting him juke a defender and cut back to the outside and score easily. Rover quickly countered with a score by breaking two tackles off a quick up the middle to tie the score at 7.
Then OPSB does what it has done so many times in the past, get it to the quick and shifty brothers Fili Botitu and Isimeli Daveta. Both had great games scoring a combined 5 times and seemed to have a bit of fun while doing it. Daveta was the first to score by using his version of the stutter step to once again freeze a defender for a half second and race up the sideline for a score.
Botitu was next by kicking a grubber to the back corner and picking it on a perfect bounce and racing past two Rover defenders for his first score to make the score 21-7 and head into halftime with a commanding lead. However, OPSB had been here before and didn’t want to take anything to chance, so they decided to up the temp a bit more.
In the second half, it was more of the same for Beach. Despite an early score off a kickoff from the Rovers, OPSB unleashed the Fijian duo once again. This time however, it was Botitu that scored not once, but twice in a row. It started off a ruck and a quick cutback on the weak side to race up the sideline untouched for his second score. Less than 20 seconds later, he was back to the races with a his famous stutter step off a scrum and perfect placement of the ball in the scoring area for an easy conversion.
Daveta finished off the scoring for OPSB when he found the smallest lane on a quick stutter step and cutback through two defenders and outpacing the entire Rovers team for his second score and putting the game out of reach.
After the game, there was nothing smiles, hugs and hand pounds for Beach and yet another mission accomplished after a little fall off the tracks.
“We wanted to preach defense and set a goal of no tries,” OPSB head coach Evan Haigh said. “We lost sight of that and putting tempo back in our game in the last two tournaments and didn’t want to go down that road again.”
“We were disappointed about our last few tournaments and just wanted to try to put that behind us,” OPSB player Miles Craigwell said. “We wanted to step up our defense and score first and score often and I think we did a better job of that today than we did in the last couple weeks and its good to get back winning.”
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Written by RUGBYMag Staff
Sunday, 31 July 2011 00:41 |
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BC Upsets Rock at Canadian Championships |
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Canada -
Men
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The first upset of the Canadian Rugby Championship was delivered in its first game as British Columbia downed The Rock 43-19. Last year’s champions were matched up front by a fierce and determined BC pack but and had no answer for the scything runs and slick passing of their opponents.
In perfect conditions for attacking rugby at Klahanie Park in North Vancouver, BC got off to a blistering start and The Rock struggled to keep up throughout. By the time the final whistle was blown BC had crossed the line six times for a resounding victory that also secured vital bonus points.
Head coach for The Rock, Pat Parfrey felt his forwards were the equal of BC but conceded that they “were beaten by the better team.”
BC, Parfrey added, “got off to a rapid start and scored three tries in the first 25 minutes. Their backs had great pace and movement and really punished us. Nathan Hirayama, (Esava) Nakulanisa, (Josefa) Dolesau, and Conor Trainor were fantastic.”
The Rock briefly held the lead when their flyhalf Dean Blanks slotted a penalty but Trainor and Hirayama, who are both World Cup bound, turned the tie on its head with a try and conversion, respectively. The home side were tagged back to 7-6 before they went 17 points unanswered thanks to tries from Dolesau and Hirayama. Hirayama added a penalty to make it 24-6 before Rock fullback Morgan Lovell sniped through to reduce arrears to 24-11 at halftime.
If The Rock were hoping to bounce back after the break, a series of sloppy lineout giveaways quelled their ambitions. Their renowned pack was being made fight for every inch and, when BC’s Eric Wilson fed the ball back from scrumhalf, they opened up. Trainor was on the end of another swift passing move and scored his second try of the game.
“Defensively I think our forwards won the game for us inside,” said Wilson. “They set up some great ball for the backs and we have some great runners that we put into space.”
Geoff Warden provided a chink of light for the visitors with a surging run for a try and Blanks added a penalty but BC would not be denied. Their flanker Josh Clarke sprinted half the field to touch down in the far right corner. The home supporters were in ecstasy but the cheering was not done as winger Esava Nakulanisa touched down after bursting through for try number six.
The Rock will look to bounce back on Tuesday when they play the Prairie Wolf Pack in Calgary and they have a few injury problems that will see a re-jig in the lineup.
BC will face Ontario Blues next and head coach Kris de Scossa will be eager for his young side to build on an encouraging start.
"I have said going into this year that we were going to be a performance-based team and that was a great performance from our players," De Scossa said. "We are still the underdogs but we can take a lot away from that result."
BC: 43
Tries: Trainor 2, Dolesau, Hirayama, Clarke, Nakulanisa
Convs: Hirayama 5
Pens: Hirayama
The Rock: 19
Tries: Lovell, Warden
Pens: Dean Blanks 3
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