St. Albert beat up the punchless Calgary Saracens with a knockout performance in Saturday's premier men's rugby tilt.
Three explosive tries by Duncan Maguire in the first half ignited the 70-12 blowout in front of a small but boisterous crowd at the St. Albert Rugby Football Club.
The British tag-team tandem of Karim Lynch and Chris Ealey also combined to score five spectacular tries for the 2010 Labatt's Cup provincial champions.
"It was just general dominance," said Ealey, a newcomer from the Portsmouth rugby club who looked like the real deal at outside-centre. "It was a good all around performance. Each individual was better than theirs. Our forwards dominated the scrums and the line-outs so that gave us a nice platform, especially in the first half to run some good moves. Our defence was pretty good, too. We had very few missed tackles."
It was a must-win match for the firsts, losers of three in a row to kick off the premier fixtures before grinding out a hard-fought 22-14 decision against the winless Titans in Red Deer on June 4.
"It's big. The talk obviously was St. Albert was 0-3 but now two games and two wins, plus bonus points so that's 10 points out of 10 in the last two games and that's huge," said scrum-half Matt Herod. "The goal obviously is not to lose another game. We had a tough start to the season. It was Druids [29-17], Clan [25-20] and Hornets [27-14] and that's not an easy start. Two of those games we thought we played extremely well but came out on the losing side. One of those was obviously a poor, poor first half [against the Druids] that put us out of it. Red Deer also played us very strong but the guys pulled through. Today it was just an absolute team effort."
With seven matches remaining, the firsts have their sights set on fourth place and home-field advantage in the quarter-finals.
"We're still building for that provincial championship," said Herod, president of the St. Albert rugby club.
The return of Lynch, last year's MVP and 2009 rookie of the year on the firsts, and the addition of the slippery Ealey boosted St. Albert's quest for a provincial repeat.
"With Karim back [in the backs] we're right back into the flow of things. He fits in and we know how he plays," Herod said. "With Chris we had to get used to him this week [at training] but at this level he is an absolute standout. He had two [tries] today and is a very strong runner."
Ealey, 21, needed only six minutes into his St. Albert debut to open the scoring. He speared a Lynch pass from inside the 22-metre line and marched into the try area untouched.
"I made a move and their fullback pushed across so I just stepped inside of him," said Ealey, who hails from south London.
Another splendid dash by the British import in the 49th minute made it 43-0.
"It was a great start for me; first game and a big win," Ealey said. "There was a bit of nerves but they were good nerves. I like to play with nerves."
He was recruited by Simon Gregory, a Portsmouth teammate and last year's rookie of the year on the firsts at standoff.
"I'm good friends with Simon. He recommended that I come out here and put Chal [Smyth, the head coach] in touch with me," said the university graduate in sports and exercise science. "Simon said it was good fun. Nice people. Good rugby. Sunshine. A few beers. Nice pitch. Nice club. I thought, why not? I had no job lined up.
"It's good to get more experience playing with new players with different styles. The conditions today were similar to back home as well so that was nice. Hopefully we'll have a nice sunny day soon and we'll change to a bit wider play."
Blazing start
Maguire's hat trick and tries by Lynch and Ben Robinson, plus four conversions by Herod in the first half, gave the firsts a commanding 38-0 lead at halftime. Maguire chewed up the grass along the right touchline while reeling in breakaway passes from Ealey (first try), Jake Robinson and Herod (second try) and Lynch (third try).
Lynch finished off a sneaky quick pass from Jake, the younger of the two Robinson brothers, in tight of the try line in the 17th minute.
It was 26-0 when Ben fielded a poor kick in front of the halfway line and lumbered his way into the try area without fear of being tackled in the 23rd minute.
"We started off very strong with tries right off the hop to set the pace," Herod said. "When you're against a team [that] is 0-4, when they go down like that it's really tough to come back and it's just a matter of closing them out."
Rounding out the scoring in the second half was a gift try by Jake from forward Dominik Jenni, who galloped through traffic during a time-consuming run before dishing the ball off near the five-metre line, Adam Bontus (from Lynch), an interception return by Lynch to make it 58-5 in the 68th minute, Alberta Golden Bears' football player Matt Jarvis (second half sub on the wing) and Lynch (hauled in a pass from a streaking Jarvis with one hand before busting his way into the try area).
Herod, 30, finished five-for-12 on conversions after missing a penalty kick early in the match.
Not starting in the forwards because of injuries was Kyle Gilmour with the nationals sevens program and Irish import Johnny Moloney.
On tap this Saturday for the firsts is a rematch of the provincial final against the visiting Calgary Canucks (3-1) at 4 p.m. The seconds (1-2) kick off the afternoon at 2 p.m. against the Leduc Crude (2-3).
"It's a big rugby day here in St. Albert. The Canucks are always a challenge but the firsts are building. Our seconds had that big win against Fort McMurray [29-12 on June 12] so they're building too," said Herod, who made a rare appearance at scrum-half against the Saracens after scoring a try at fullback for the seconds against Fort McMurray (2-3).
