Ellerslie Rugby Park – The future looks bright for the St. Albert Rugby Football Club with the undefeated U17 juniors poised to celebrate a provincial championship.
“Hopefully we can get it. We’ve got a good team,” said scrum-half Jesse Shirton after Wednesday’s 76-7 dismantlement of the Nor’Westers. “It would be really nice for the club too because the last couple of years, not even our team but the U19s all the way up to men’s, we’ve been so close. We’ve been getting silver most of the time or bronze. We’ve been right there, but just not quite.”
The 7-0 juggernauts have one match left until the Edmonton Rugby Union playoffs kick off. The final is Aug. 17 and the provincial showdown against the Calgary Rugby Union playoff winner goes Aug. 24 at Ellerslie Rugby Park.
“I’m really pumped about the playoffs, especially after a win like this,” said hooker Nathan Yue. “The Nor’Westers beat us in the city final last year (24-3 en route to winning provincials) so we’re ready to take it all in the playoffs.”
The team’s core players were the driving force behind the U15s reaching the 2011 provincial final and last year’s ERU final by the U17s, who lost the provincial final the year before.
“It’s been a lot of the same guys since U12 and U14 coming all the way up together,” Shirton said. “We’ve also got a lot of new guys and more numbers this year. We’ve got subs.”
The U17s are excelling at the junior level after playing for their high school teams.
“It’s a little more experienced group in juniors. We know the game a lot better and we can really touch on the finer points and that just brings our game up even more,” said Shirton, 17, a Grade 12 Paul Kane High School student. “The high school season is also pretty short and there is not a lot of training.”
The talented and cohesive U17s are averaging 45 points per win and have given up 64 points overall.
“The second they have the ball we press up really hard and hit them low and the second we have the ball we’re making the gain line and we make the yards,” Yue said. “We’ve also been playing as a team. Everyone works together and that’s why our team has such good chemistry.”
However, there is still room for improvement.
“We have to fine tune hitting the rucks hard and making sure that we have support with our guys when we have the ball,” said Yue, 17, a Grade 12 student at Paul Kane.
The U17s turned in a near flawless performance against the Nor’Westers (1-5) while rolling up 12 tries. Flanker Drew Grant ran in four tries, captain Austen McDonald turned on the jets for three tries and standoff Zac Moss scored once and converted eight tries.
The U17s sealed the deal in the first quarter on tries by McDonald (valuable eight-man with impeccable leadership qualities), Moss (superb run from inside the halfway line) and Grant (bulldozed his way over the try line after accepting a quick pass from Shirton out of a ruck with a full head of steam going) before the 12-minute mark. The quarter ended with the U17s on top 26-0.
McDonald’s fourth try of the half and a Moss conversion made it 50-0 to end the first half.
The only scoring in the third quarter was a converted try by the Nor’Westers as a number of U17 starters sat on the bench.
Grant recorded two of the team’s four tries in the fourth quarter. Last Saturday the member of the 2013 Edmonton Gold high school sevens’ touring team lit up the Edson Axmen for five tries in the 32-5 win.
The last U17 match before the playoffs is Aug. 7 against the Druids-Lep/Tigers (4-2). Kickoff is 7 p.m. at Lynn Davies Rugby Park in Sherwood Park.
