The rematch of last year’s premier men’s north semifinal kicks off Saturday between two .500 teams.
The St. Albert Rugby Football Club hosts the Strathcona Druids at 4 p.m. for the right to get beat by the Nor’Westers in the Sept. 22 Ken Anne Cup final at Ellerslie Rugby Park and a provincial berth in Calgary on the line.
SARFC and the Druids finished the Alberta Cup fixtures at 5-5 after fullback Cameron Hall’s penalty kick on the last play of Saturday’s match lifted the visitors from Sherwood Park past the hometown squad 35-32.
“We know what they bring and we have two (training) days to prepare accordingly,” said Matt Jarvis, a winger who was slotted at outside-centre against the Druids. “If we just stick to our structure we think we can beat any other team in the league.”
Regardless of the result between SARFC (297 PF/289 PA) and the Druids (268 PF/314 PA), the Nor’Westers (9-1, 385 PF/193 PA) are huge favourites to return to provincials as the defending Labatt's Cup champions, and their semifinal opponent is the Lep/Tigers (4-6, 250 PF/299 PA).
But all bets are off if SARFC can knock off the Druids after last year’s much-maligned 23-13 playoff collapse on St. Albert soil that abruptly ended three Labatt’s Cups in a row and nine consecutive appearances in the Ken Ann Cup final for the team formerly known as the "fantastic firsts."
“I thought that this week we would have had that in the back of our minds, so hopefully next week we’ve got it more at the forefront,” Jarvis said. “But we owe them one.”
SARFC beat the Druids 46-15, with seven tries to two, June 23 at Lynn Davies Rugby Park, but the bottom line for Saturday, according to Jarvis, is, “We can’t look past the Druids next week.”
The Druids danced a jig after Hall’s walk-off kick to win against SARFC put them ahead of the Lep/Tigers in the playoff pecking order to see who could avoid the Nor’Westers in the opening round.
“Going into the homestretch of the season here I think we’re looking pretty good,” Hall said. “We’ve definitely had a downward year a little bit but we’re peaking at the right time, which seems to be a bit of a theme for the past couple of years.”
The last match before the playoffs marked another different starting 15 for SARFC.
“Not to sound negative, but it’s frustrating to not be able to run out the same lineup more than once in a season. Ideally the last two or three weeks we would've had our playoff lineup and (would have been) fine-tuning things, but we’ve got now two days next week to sort that out,” said Jarvis, the SARFC senior rugby director. “Our tackling wasn't great today so that’s probably something we’re going to work on, and again our structure is something we're going to keep pounding away on at training. We trust our athletes as long as we’re running our structure.”
SARFC is also a tepid 2-3 at home after closing out league play with four losses in six matches.
“We had a really good first half and then kind of let our foot off the gas pedal going into the second half,” Jarvis said of the 22-10 SARFC advantage after 40 minutes. “They scored right out of the gates in the second half and the wind came out of our sails a bit and we just never recovered.
“Structure is supposed to stay the same and I think for the most part it did. We just kind of started to kind of take it into our own hands a little bit too much and stopped trusting the structure that we have in place.”
As for the Druids, “We were pretty hit or miss. There is a ton to improve on for next week, which is promising,” Hall said. “We need to work on our scrum for sure. Our set piece was definitely our weakness and then a bit of line speed issues but on the attack there is nothing wrong – maybe straightening things up a little bit, but it will be exciting going into next weekend.”
SARFC led by two tries at the halfway mark of the first half and it was 22-7 when the left-footed Hall split the uprights on a penalty with four minutes left in the half.
Adam Bontus, the SARFC captain for the match, was in the sin bin for overflexing his muscles on a retaliation play when the Druids scored five minutes after the break and Hall made the conversion.
Nine minutes after, Hall rattled off another penalty kick from long range.
SARFC quickly replied as Joe Casella split the uprights with a straight-ahead penalty boot but the Druids answered a few minutes later with a try converted by Hall to make it 27-25.
With 11 minutes remaining, Ben Miller, a high school graduate of the 2018 metro Edmonton division two champion Bellerose Bulldogs, retrieved a quick kick into the try area against a startled defender. Casella’s conversion off the post and through put SARFC back on top at 32-27. Casella, an import fullback, assumed the kicking duties in the second half in place of fullback Jordan Tait.
The never-say-die Druids stormed back with the game-tying try but Hall uncharacteristically missed the conversion with seven minutes to go.
In injury time, the Druids positioned themselves in SARFC territory and Hall's clutch penalty kick from inside the 40-metre line sealed the deal.
"It felt like one of those games where it was just timing as to who was going to end up in the other team's half at the right time, and luckily it was us,” Hall said. “As a kicker that is kind of the stuff you work for. That’s the stuff you imagine when you're on the pitch practising. So to get that opportunity is a bit of a dream. I'm just glad I pulled it off for my teammates – so, happy days."
Hall, 23, looked like the second coming of former SARFC great Ashley Hanson the way he was banging the ball all over the pitch.
“In the warm-up I kind of knew I was going to have a good day. I had a bit of confidence going into the game, which is always nice, so it's good to live up that,” said the third-year Druid from Ladysmith, B.C.
The week before, SARFC needed three tries by Jarvis to subdue the Lep/Tigers 46-29 in St. Albert.
“It was the same as today. In that first half, I thought for 35 to 40 minutes we pretty much dominated; it didn't show on the score sheet that we dominated the first half but I felt we carried the play. We missed a couple of conversions and that’s nobody's fault; they’re tough ones to make, but we were rolling really well and then allowed a couple of late scores and it seemed closer than it was,” Jarvis, 31, a Beaumont product and former fifth-year tailback and MVP of the 2010 Alberta Golden Bears. "Last week, we played to our structure and got lucky at the end to score a bunch of tries in the last few minutes against the LTs.”
