St. Albert’s premier women’s rugby team settled for a tie after letting the win slip away against the Clan.
Saturday’s match ended with a try by the Clan to knot the score at 22 points apiece and the conversion attempt for the victory fell short of the posts.
“It was a fun game but not the result we wanted,” said fullback Michelle Marler after the stalemate at the St. Albert Rugby Football Club.
The home team led 17-5 at halftime and the second try of the afternoon by British import Carys Williams made it 22-10 with 13 minutes remaining.
The bulk of the second half was spent deep in St. Albert’s end of the rain-soaked pitch as the Clan attempted numerous times to plow through the defensive wall in front of the try area.
“We know how the Clan plays. They’re hard up through the middle and they’ve got their big girls so we were ready,” said Marler, 29, the team captain against the Clan. “We were fortunate that they were dropping the ball a lot. The rain may have helped us with that.”
The Clan closed the gap to five points with a converted try with eight minutes to go.
The last try was scored with St. Albert shorthanded with winger Marcia Davis in the sin-bin as the recipient of the team’s second yellow card in the half. MacKenzie Doughty, the other winger, was also sentenced to the sin-bin seven minutes after the break.
“We fumbled it at the end,” Marler said. “We had two yellow cards so moving up to premier we need to know the rules of rugby better and that’s part of our learning curve so that definitely hurt us.”
St. Albert, the Clan and Pirates are the Alberta Women’s Premier new additions as the top three teams in the Edmonton Rugby Union division one table last year.
In the semifinals, St. Albert (9-4) coughed up a 36-13 lead in the second half and lost 37-36 to the Clan at SARFC. The halftime margin was 24-13.
Results against the Clan last year was the 31-19 win at home and losses of 59-12 and 57-31 at Airways Park.
The Clan (10-4) went on to win the ERU championship.
“They’re our archenemies and we always have a tight game with them so it’s fun but we want to beat them and we could’ve today for sure,” said Marler, who pulled off a clutch try-saving tackle in front of the five-metre line in Saturday’s tilt before the Clan scored in the sixth minute.
The 2016 recipient of the team’s Players Player Award would later set up the first try by Williams by chasing down a kick around the St. Albert 22-metre line and proceeded to break several tackles up field before dishing the ball off to the inside-centre around the Clan’s 40-metre line and there was no stopping the former U20 England player from scoring in the 12th minute.
Four minutes, scrumhalf Emily Dewitt zipped in along the touchline to put St. Albert up 10-5.
After a long stretch of Clan pressure, St. Albert broke away with a big romp by eight-man Sydney De La Mare before sending Davis into the clear with seven minutes left in the half. Dewitt split the uprights on the conversion.
The second try for Williams, and her fourth in two matches, was scored eight minutes after the Clan trimmed the lead to seven points.
“She is definitely an asset,” said Marler of the Lichfield Rugby Union Football Club product.
Sarah McManus of San Diego, a prop against the Clan after hooking in the season-opener against the Lep/Tigers, and second-row Kristin Shalosky from the Glendale Raptors Football Club in Colorado are also imports on the St. Albert roster.
Despite the disappointing tie, St. Albert improved in leaps and bounds from its 59-12 drubbing by the Lep/Tigers the previous Saturday at SARFC
“The LTs have been a premier team for as long as I can remember,” said Marler of last year’s third-place 5-7 premier team. “We were definitely short of numbers last week, we were short some of our premier girls, but we’re hoping to be competitive in premier.”
This year’s eight-team AWP division includes the Calgary Hornets as the defending champions.
The next match is May 27 against the Saracens in Calgary.
