Ellerslie Rugby Park – The team to beat in premier men’s rugby refused to lose in pursuit of a provincial three-peat.
The St. Albert Rugby Football Club’s will to win overwhelmed the Nor’Westers 41-38 after falling behind 12-0 with 15 minutes gone in the Ken Ann Cup north final Saturday.
“It’s going to sound pretty clichĂ© but it was a straight-up battle right from the kick-off. We just needed to perform at our top level and I feel we did that. The guys really dug deep,” said captain Jake Robinson with a smile as wide as the goal posts.
The winners of the last two provincial championships will now scrum down against the Calgary Hornets (13-0) in the Labatt’s Cup final Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at Calgary Rugby Park.
“I’m really, really proud of you boys. You earned it,” Si Culley, head coach of the 11-2 SARFC first 15, told the players after the cup presentation. “To score 41 points in a final is an outstanding effort. For those of you geeky like me that puts our average points scored over 40 a game so I’m pretty pleased with that. You absolutely bought into what we wanted to play.
“That’s two big weeks of training and two outstanding victories (including the 52-19 north semifinal against the Clan) but we need one more big week and we come home with the title, the three-peat, and that’s huge.”
Glaring turnovers by the firsts resulted in tries in the ninth minute – a snafu involving an ill-timed pass in tight of the Nor’Westers’ try line was converted into the opening score after a chip-and-chase to advance the ball – and in the 15th minute when fullback Antony Fitch’s pass near the touchline around the halfway line was intercepted and the score was converted.
Three minutes later, Dan Laventure picked off a pass around the Nor’Westers’ 40-metre line without breaking stride for a try and Fitch kicked the conversion.
“Dan’s interception try really brought us back into the game,” said standoff Andy (Pinky) Kelleher. “After falling behind like that we had to take a step back and refocus and go about our game plan the way we wanted to and when we stick to our game plan the way we want to play, there are very few teams that can live with us.”
The firsts grabbed the lead for good by capitalizing on a miscue in the SARFC end and in a blink of an eye returned the ball with gusto past the halfway line, where Duncan Maguire finished off the play with superior speed and hip-shaking moves through the beleaguered Nor’Westers.
“After we let them score a couple of easy tries to start with we turned around and cut out the stupid mistakes and played our game,” said Fitch, who split the uprights on Maguire’s try to put the firsts up by two points.
The firsts kept on rolling as A.J. King capped off a passing sequence in the 28th minute. Kelleher and Josh Oden were among the last of several hands of gold to touch the ball in front of the try line before King scored. Fitch’s conversion was good.
The Nor’Westers recovered with a short burst over the try line and the conversion left them trailing by two in the 31st minute.
Fitch’s second penalty kick attempt of the half, a shot from outside the 22-metre line, made it 24-19 in the 36th minute.
Two minutes earlier, Maguire bolted deep into scoring range but after the ball was presented to Fitch the Nor’Westers forced a turnover at their five-metre line.
The five-point margin at halftime flattered the Nor’Westers after the firsts roared back with fire in their eyes.
“We wanted to play a quick game at high tempo so they wouldn’t be able to hang with us,” said Robinson, 27, the front-runner for the senior men’s player of the year award in the north. “Maybe it was just a bit of nerves but we made a couple of mistakes and they capitalized which is good on them but we rallied around it. We knew we were dominating the game at that point territorial possession-wise and we just needed to keep doing what we were doing and just minimize those little mistakes that they capitalized on. We did that by the end of the first half and come away with the win.”
The firsts switched up their lineup throughout the second half without missing a beat and in the 44th minute Robert Blunden found an extra gear to score after a spirited run by Adam Bontus. Fitch’s conversion was good.
“That try kind of put us in the mindset that this was our game and we’re not going to lose this,” Kelleher said.
Fitch would go on to kick a penalty from outside the 22 in the 49th minute to extend the lead to 34-19 and seven minutes later was wide of the posts on a penalty from outside the 22.
The Nor’Westers clawed their way back into contention with a converted try in the 59th minute but the next minute Fitch accelerated his way into the try area and added the conversion for a score of 41-26.
“The ball came to me I looked up and all I saw was space going forward and after I put the ball down I was overwhelmed with emotion,” Fitch said. “It gave a bit of oomph behind the team. We needed that little extra bit of kick to get us going after they scored.”
The Nor’Westers pulled it together with tries four minutes apart and the second was converted in the 50th minute to trail by three. In between the tries was a Fitch penalty kick from outside the 22 that missed the mark.
After the final whistle the firsts let loose a huge sigh of relief that could be heard back in St. Albert.
“I didn’t really have high blood pressure before the game but I sure do now. It was very high-scoring for a final with the ebbs and flows,” said Kelleher, 25. “They were good, no doubt about it, but we kind of let them in with mistakes and bad tackling and going into next weekend it’s something we need to correct if we hope to win a provincial championship.”
The Nor’Westers are definitely a team on the rise. In the Alberta Cup fixtures, SARFC won the season opener 50-35 at the Nor’Westers and lost at home 38-36 on a converted try on the last play of the match after trailing by 12 with about 10 minutes remaining.
Last year SARFC defeated the Nor’Westers 28-19 for its third consecutive Ken Ann Cup and seventh in eight-straight appearances in the north final.
“Obviously it was going to be a grudge match because the Nor’Westers have come on by leaps and bounds the last few years as a solid, gritty team in Alberta and it’s always difficult playing against them. It was a pretty intense game and I’m just glad we won it,” said Fitch, 22.
