Home-field advantage favours the St. Albert Rugby Football Club against its longtime bitter rival in today’s semifinals.
The SARFC division one women and premier men host the Clan in the last hurrah at the Riel Park facility this season. Kickoff times are 2 p.m. for the women and 4 p.m. for the men.
“It’s really exciting,” said Jasmine Jarvis, a prop for the 9-3 SARFC ladies in the Edmonton Rugby Union. “Anyone coming down here, especially in a playoff game and having to play in front of the fans on the deck, they’ll have a little bit of trouble getting going, so we’ll have that on them.”
On the premier side, the SARFC first 15 have dominated the Clan in recent years and the last time they lost to the Edmonton-based club was the 2013 Alberta Cup lid-lifter.
“We’ve got a 10- or 11-game winning streak against them right now so the nerves are not too high, but it’s playoffs so anything can happen,” said Robert Blunden, a hooker for the second-place 9-2 firsts.
This year’s results for the firsts were 24-9 June 11 at SARFC and 34-25 Aug. 20 at Airways Park.
“They’ve come pretty hard at us the last couple of times. Their No. 8 is always a good solid runner,” Blunden said. “We can shut them down if we just play how we usually do.”
The winner battles the Nor’Westers (7-4) or Strathcona Druids (5-5-1) in the Ken Ann Cup north final next Saturday at 5 p.m. at Ellerslie Rugby Park.
The north champion advances to the Labatt’s Cup provincial final Oct. 1 at Calgary Rugby Park.
The Calgary Hornets (12-0) are the team to beat in the Calgary Rugby Union playoffs.
The firsts are the reigning Labatt’s Cup champions as winners of the last two provincial crowns and the last team to three-peat was the 2011-13 Hornets.
“To win back to back to back would be very exciting because it would compare us with the Hornets,” said Blunden of the three-time defending Ken Ann Cup champions and winners of seven in eight consecutive appearances in the north final.
The Clan (3-8) are winless in three matches and the third win in a row for the firsts was 36-33 over the Calgary Rams (5-6-1) last weekend in Cowtown. The firsts led 19-14 coming up to halftime, then fell behind by margins of 24-19 and 27-24 before pulling off their eighth victory in nine matches.
“It was a good game to help us prepare. It gave us a kick in the ass because it really came down right to the end. We went in there thinking they were a soft team but they gave it to us pretty hard. It was literally last minute tries that saved us, some magic on our part, but it just shows what we can do when we really put our minds to what we need to do,” said Blunden, 22.
The women’s match is shaping up to be a barn-burner. SARFC defeated the Clan 31-19 June 29 at home and lost 59-12 July 23 and 57-31 Aug. 13 at Airways Park.
“We’re expecting them to come out pretty hard but we beat them pretty well at home last time so we’re going to hope they have a little bit of a memory of that left versus the two games we played against them at their home,” said the newly married Jarvis (nee Fleming), who celebrated her 30th birthday at Thursday’s training session.
“We just have to think back to how we beat them. We came out of the gate really strong (to lead 21-0 at halftime). We had all of our personnel too, with people coming off the bench ready to go.”
SARFC and the Pirates (9-3) finished with identical records but the Pirates placed first overall with two more bonus points after beating the Clan 24-12 last weekend. It was the first loss for the third-place Clan (8-4) after five straight wins.
Jarvis and head coach Byron Elliott scouted the match at the Pirates Rugby Club.
“We noticed the Clan were really clumped in, all on one third of the field, so if we really work on spreading it out and getting the ball wide we’ll be successful,” Jarvis said. “Our defence is going to have to be really strong too.”
The winner scrums down against the Pirates or Crude/West (3-9) for the ERU Johnsen Cup next Saturday at 1 p.m. at Ellerslie.
Last year SARFC lost the Alberta first division semifinal to the Calgary Saracens, the eventual provincial champions, after sweeping the 2014 ERU and provincial second division finals.
“We were struggling a lot (1-12 in 2013 and on the verge of folding because of a lack of players) and now it’s our third year in a row going into the playoffs so we’re pretty pumped,” said Jarvis, the SARFC vice-president, ERU secretary and 2015 recipient of the ERU outstanding club administrator award.
