The first division women’s team took it on the chin while losing with class in Wednesday’s bout against the defending provincial champions.
The Clan were red-carded twice in the late stages of the penalty-marred 30-10 affair at the St. Albert Rugby Football Club.
A few minutes after losing a player to the sin-bin over a yellow card, and the Clan in front 27-10, the team’s standoff got the boot for punching Meagan McKinstry in the face instead of tackling the hooker when she had the ball.
With about two minutes to go, the Clan’s fullback was exiled to the sideline for pulling McKenzie Pusch’s hair on a tackle attempt. The Clan player was heckled relentlessly during her walk of shame off the pitch and gave the SARFC supporters on the balcony a rude salute.
Pusch and the fullback were previous involved in a heated nose-to-nose exchange, with other players in the mix, over a play that resulted in a yellow card to the Clan, forcing the referee to chat up the captains of both teams.
“They were dirty. Oh, if I could swear right now,” said scrumhalf Katelyn Moorhouse while staring into the reporter’s tape recorder.
In the post-game huddle SARFC coaches Byron Elliott and Ashley Hanson stressed how proud they were to see the ladies play with class despite the Clan’s shenanigans.
It was the closest margin of victory for the first-place Clan (3-1, three bonus points) in the Alberta division one fixtures, but tries by Pusch (dash down the touchline) and junior Maddy Doyle (punched the ball over the try line) during a 14-minute span cut the deficit to 20-10 with about 25 minutes to play.
“Essentially we were winning and they felt like they needed to justify it by beating the crap out of us and throwing dirty throws. The injuries were through the roof. We had a couple of black eyes and of course we lost Megan (Lauer, a flanker, when it was 20-5) with her wrist injury, but in the end we triumphed even though we lost,” Moorhouse said. “They’re dirty players and we got the better end of it.”
SARFC, playing in its first match since July 18, stumbled out of the gates as the physical Clan rolled up tries in the third and 11th minutes of play.
A couple of penalties to the Clan in scoring territory, plus a stoic defensive stand by SARFC, kept it at 10-0 before the visitors cracked the try line in the 31st minute.
A ferocious defence held the Clan in check for three unconverted tries in the opening 40 minutes.
Offensively, lengthy runs by Brie Grey and Michelle Marler gave SARFC a boost in the first half and a penalty play deep in Clan territory almost resulted in a try while trailing by 15.
After the Clan kicked off the second half with a try with two minutes gone, SARFC moved the ball with authority for consecutive scores by the speedy Pusch and Doyle at forward.
The Clan would go to score a try off a scrum before things heated up and later kicked a penalty after the first red card.
Eight-man and captain Sabrina Kelly, a tackling machine all over the field, played a whale of a game in a losing cause.
Moorhouse, 22, described SARFC’s performance “as a steady incline” from the start.
“It was hard to match them at first. They were coming at us pretty strong. Their offence was above our defence in the first 10 minutes and then because of our incline we slowly took over and we were matching them the entire way. We started getting our tries, we started making our tackles and being a lot more aggressive and coming up to the line hard,” said the high school rugby product of the Bellerose Bulldogs.
The loss left SARFC (1-3, two BP) scrambling to make the semifinals in the six-team division. The last match before the playoffs is this Wednesday against another tough foe, Crude/West (1-2, two BP). Kickoff is 7 p.m. at the Nor’Westers Fields.
“Our goal is to be contenders in first div. We don’t want to be at the bottom, we wanted to be competitors,” Moorhouse said.
SARFC’s only win in the first division was the July 25 forfeit by the LTs/Druids (1-2, one BP) after posting a 7-2 record (two wins were by forfeits) in the Edmonton Rugby Union second division spring league and was awarded a first division berth.
Last year SARFC celebrated provincial and ERU second division championships while going 11-4 overall.
“It’s been a learning curve for us in first div. There seems to be quite the difference between first and second div,” Moorhouse said. “We still had our competition in second div, like when we faced Grande Prairie last year (in the ERU final). We were fighting the entire way to win cities but in the end we triumphed and then to win provincials it felt really good. Now, we just have to be competitive in first div.”
