St. Albert’s premier men’s rugby team has a dangerous curve to navigate on the road to a provincial four-peat.
Saturday’s match against the undefeated Calgary Hornets should determine if the winners of three in a row are headed in the right direction after a sluggish start in the Alberta Cup first division fixtures.
Kickoff is 4 p.m. at the St. Albert Rugby Football Club.
“I’m pretty sure we will be absolutely prepared,” declared Robert Blunden, a sturdy hooker for the 5-3 SARFC firsts.
The Hornets are 9-0 after knocking off the Nor’Westers and last weekend’s result in Calgary was the first loss for the top north team in the Alberta Cup table.
The run of eight straight wins by the Nor’Westers included crushing outcomes of 57-26 and 51-3 against SARFC.
After the second painful performance against the Nor’Westers, SARFC reeled off home-field victories of 62-27 against the Calgary Saints (3-6), 36-27 against the Lep/Tigers (4-5) and 69-5 against the Calgary Rams (3-6).
“We’re putting it back together as a team. Our heads were down early on in the season and now we’re starting to look up. Everyone is switching on as a unit,” said Blunden, who scored one of the team’s 11 tries against the Rams last weekend and had another try nullified because of a forward pass.
The Hornets will be in a snarly mood after last year’s bitter 25-20 loss to SARFC in the provincial final at Calgary. A prolonged defensive stand of epic proportions by SARFC in the late stages and the Hornets only a couple of metres away from the try area not only preserved the third consecutive Labatt’s Cup and the fourth since 2010 by the firsts, it also marked the only setback of the season for the Hornets after 13 wins. SARFC finished 12-2 overall.
SARFC and the Hornets have combined to win the last eight Labatt’s Cups and last year’s thriller was the fifth provincial showdown between the premier rivals. Previous results were 24-22 in 2009, 31-13 in 2011 and 47-10 in 2013 for the Hornets at Ellerslie Rugby Park and 39-5 for SARFC in 2014 at Calgary.
“When it’s St. Albert against the Hornets, both sides will come out and slug away at each other. It just depends who makes less mistakes at the end of the day,” Blunden said. “We’re definitely going to come out with some fire especially with the way last year went and they’re going to be coming at us just as hard too.”
SARFC is now 2-1 against Calgary teams – the lone setback was 13-12 to the host Canucks (5-3) in May – after a lengthy list of forwards and backs took turns putting points on the board following the opening score by the Rams in the sixth minute.
Among the several SARFC standouts were Jake Robinson, arguably the best scrumhalf in Alberta, golden boy Duncan Maguire in the backs, British standoff George Harding, who is rounding into form as an accurate kicker with seven conversions on the day, Trent Bennett at lock and outside-centre Aiden Zalasky.
“We were working offensively. We’re building more structure and there is more phase play,” Blunden said. “Our scrums were great too and that's just us working together and everyone staying focused and being clinical.”
Blunden, 23, along with Angus (Gus) MacDonald and Lawrence Ross as his front-row prop sidekicks were a handful for the Rams to contain. The trio stuck their tackles with gusto and also flashed offensive flair when presented with the ball.
“With Jake Robinson at nine (scrumhalf) he will just pick the gaps and hit a guy going through and you’re almost guaranteed a try,” said Blunden, a high school rugby product of the Bellerose Bulldogs who was selected to the Prairie Wolf Pack team in the Canadian Rugby Championship league along with SARFC teammates Kyle Gilmour, Adam Bontus and Robinson.
SCRUM BALLS: Antony Fitch, a former noteworthy SARFC player in the backs, is playing for the Hornets this year but ripped up his ACL and MCL in the 43-33 win over the Saints on July 15 and is done for the season.
The SARFC third division men clinched a spot in the six-team Edmonton Rugby Union playoffs in Saturday’s 38-5 road victory against the winless Cold Lake Penguins/Reapers.
The thirds, a strong mix of young and old players, have strung five wins together with two matches remaining to nail down a top-two finish in the ERU table for an opening-playoff round bye. Both matches are at SARFC, starting Aug. 11 against the Parkland Sharks (4-3) at 7 p.m.
Last year the thirds were 2-9 after sweeping the 2015 championship finals for the Visser Cup in the ERU playoffs and the Digby Dinnie Cup at provincials.
