The stage is set for the first-place division one women’s team to avenge its most lopsided loss of the season in Saturday’s retribution match against the Clan.
Kickoff is 2:30 p.m. at Airways Park between the St. Albert Rugby Football Club (7-2) and the third-place Clan (5-3) in the Edmonton Rugby Union.
The SARFC ladies are still smarting from the 59-12 rout on the Clan’s home pitch July 23 that snapped a four-game winning streak.
“We’re going to come in fired up,” stressed Kirsten Porter, a pint-size flanker, after Saturday’s 73-22 demolition of the winless Grande Prairie Sirens on Super Saturday at SARFC. “We’re going to have a couple of hard practices and we’re going to come into the game ready to hopefully beat them.”
The Clan built up a convincing 30-0 halftime lead and completed the blowout with 11 tries and two conversions in response to the 31-19 loss at SARFC on June 29.
SARFC recovered from its worst performance by knocking off the undefeated Pirates (6-1) in the epic 46-45 scorefest at home – the teams combined for 15 tries and eight conversions – before overwhelming the Sirens (0-8) with 13 tries and four conversions.
“Our defence has stepped up a lot since the Clan game,” Porter said. “We’ve really put ourselves together since then and brought it all in.”
Twelve of the try scorers against the Sirens were backs and the only forward to crash the try line was Maddy Doyle, a physically imposing prop, to make it 68-22 in the fourth quarter.
“Forwards win games and backs decide by how many,” head coach Byron Elliott told the players in the post-game debriefing. “It was a full all-around performance. The attack is coming on well, the defence is coming on well and the set pieces are coming. I was impressed.”
Elliott was also over the moon how the players “stayed ruthless” throughout the contest with multiple substitutions contributing to the cause.
“We’ve got to springboard from this. Our next test is going to be a lot tougher,” he said of the Clan showdown.
Multiple tries by captain Michelle Marler, Mckenzie Pusch of the U20 Canada team that will play England U20 in a three-game series later this month and Marcia Davis – a trio of game-breakers with blinding speed – and singles by Emily Dewitt, Mackenzie Doughty, Brie Gray and Cassie Peterson buried the Sirens.
Dewitt also converted four tries. The Grade 12 graduate of the Paul Kane Blues has been outstanding filling in at scrumhalf after starter Emily Oor left for school commitments in the United States.
At halftime it was a done deal at 53-7.
“Our offence is probably the best aspect so far as a team,” Porter said. “Our forwards kind of do the work and try and get the ball out as quickly as possible and clean as possible to give it out to the backs to do their thing and score some tries.”
The third win of the season over the Sirens by a combined 136-68 score put SARFC three points on top of the ERU table but the Pirates have two matches in hand.
SARFC has matches remaining against the Pirates and fourth-place Crude/West (2-6) after going toe-to-toe with the Clan. The semifinals kick-off Sept. 17 and the final is Sept. 24.
“We’ll do our best. We have a really good chance that’s for sure,” said Porter of the team winning its first playoff cup since sweeping the 2014 ERU and provincial second division championships.
“Three years ago, before Byron, we barely had enough players for a team and now we’re first place in the first division. We’ve been building up every single year with him. It’s been unreal,” she added. “We’re all super focused. We get numbers out for practice every time and we’re all heads in. We don’t screw around.”
Last year SARFC finished 2-4 in its Alberta division one debut after going 7-2 in the ERU spring league.
“We’ve just built on all of our skills from last year. All the old girls still stayed and we have some really good new girls, like the Dewitt twins (Emily and Kendall) and Sydney (De La Mare, a U18 Canada forward last year). They all know the rules coming up so that really makes a difference. It’s just development really,” said Porter, 23, a tenacious tackler and recipient of the team’s most improved player award last year.
