Ellerslie Rugby Park – Losing by 48 points to the Calgary Hornets was another crushing blow for a St. Albert squad on the decline in premier men’s rugby.
Saturday’s 58-10 annihilation by the bigger, stronger and faster Hornets, winners of three of the last four Labatt’s Cup provincial finals, left the first 15 in disarray after the final whistle ended the carnage.
“It’s pretty disappointing,” said scrum-half Jake Robinson, stating the obvious. “I could’ve handled a loss to them but to lose by that much and to be that disheartened by just watching half the team just walk around the field, it wasn’t good.”
The firsts – a lukewarm 2-4 with both victories against the winless Calgary Irish by a combined 111-20 score – were anxious to see how they stacked up against the team to beat in the Alberta Cup fixtures.
“We came into the game feeling pretty good. We had a couple of good training sessions Tuesday and Thursday and today we tried to put it together but we were just lacking fitness. They ran us around the park and we couldn’t keep up with them,” said Robinson, the only player to cross the try line against the Hornets.
Unfortunately for the firsts, the two-time defending provincial champions were in a snarly mood after losing the previous weekend to the undefeated Strathcona Druids 23-12.
“I suppose you can blame it on many things but the Druids were the better team on that day and yes it did give us some spark going forward. It brings that hunger back. You’ve got to earn the win. You can’t just expect it,” said Dustin MacPherson, a veteran Hornet and standoff from Sydney, Australia.
The ferocious Hornets dominated ball possession and carved up St. Albert's beleaguered defence with the skill of a surgeon to score eight tries, in addition to kicking six conversions, one penalty and in the 58th minute a cheeky drop goal to make it 34-10.
“It was a game won by the forwards,” MacPherson said. “They’ve got some big guys with Byron (Elliott), Gilly (Kyle Gilmour) and (Brett) Kelly as well so we had to match them up front. They contested a lot of ball and we were expecting that so we had to be obviously very accurate and prepared with our set pieces, as well as our ruck ball.”
It took only nine minutes for the Hornets to draw first blood with a converted try while working the ball from side to side before scoring in the corner.
Three minutes later the firsts struck on a quick penalty play by Elliott from outside the 22-metre line and Robinson finished it off under the posts for Antony Fitch to convert the score.
The Hornets regained the lead at 14-7 with a converted try in the 16th minute on a forward push after a deep lineout ball.
The Hornets escaped an obvious sin-bin infraction when Adam Higgins was clotheslined without a wrap on the tackle in the 26th minute and on the penalty kick from inside the 40-metre line was wide of the posts.
Another penalty set up Fitch’s attempt from outside the 40 that dropped short of the crossbar.
The third converted try of the half by the Hornets started with a long kick to relieve pressure, but Fitch was unable to track the ball while chased and booted it soccer style over the touchline for a lineout that Calgary turned into points.
The half ended with a Gilmour romp over several Hornets, leading up to a successful penalty kick by Fitch from outside the 22.
Down 21-10 at the break, the firsts lost their will to win after the Hornets kicked a penalty from outside the 22 and then split the defence for a converted try in the opening nine minutes.
“We struggled in set piece. On our lineouts they went up really well defensively and in scrums they drove us off our own ball,” Robinson said. “We didn’t have too many options to work off set piece but when we did have the ball I thought we put a couple of good phases together and then it was just an unfortunate turnover.”
The firsts emptied most of their bench strength as the Hornets rolled up the points. Injuries kept Kelly, the team captain and most physical player on the firsts at eight-man, on the sideline before subbing on at 31-10. The injury-riddled Duncan Maguire made a rare appearance in the backs.
The firsts were also missing some quality players through injuries or absences. Roughly a third of the player roster that is already stretched to the limit to fill three teams is on the limp.
The line-up that was cobbled together had the daunting task of trying to slam the brakes on a five-game winless stretch against the Hornets.
“They’re just a really strong side. We play similar style games and they’ve just got the upper hand on us right now,” said Robinson, who made his second start of the season and was one the few bright lights along with Gilmour and Elliott in the forwards.
MacPherson, a Facebook buddy with a lot of the firsts, struggled to speculate why the Hornets, who have 95 per cent of their roster and all their imports back from last year’s championship team, have defeated St. Albert in six straight tilts that include the 2009 and 2011 provincial finals.
“They’ve sort of gone with a rebuilding phase because they’ve lost a lot of players. It might hurt losing their grounds too (no home games this year because of reclamation work on the Leading Edge Fields). They’ve gone with a couple of coaches in the last few years. It could be many different reasons but you just have to worry about yourselves and keep playing your phases,” said MacPherson, 29.
It hasn’t looked this bleak for the firsts since the dark days of St. Albert rugby before the club stacked all its best players on the second division team in 2007 and won provincials, then rejoined the premier ranks for a run of four-straight trips to the Labatt’s Cup final.
“We’ve got three weeks off now and we’re going to work on fitness throughout those three weeks and try and come back bigger and faster,” said Robinson, 29, a provincial championship winner with the 2007 seconds and the 2010 firsts.
