Ellerslie Rugby Park – A tale of two halfs ended with a St. Albert loss on Super Saturday in Alberta Cup men’s rugby.
The damage was done in the opening 40 minutes, as the Clansmen rolled up 22 unanswered points on three tries, two conversions and a penalty kick against a shaky first 15 side.
“The Clan came out harder than we did in the first half. We were a little slow and it took us a bit to wake up,” said second row Kyle Baillie after the firsts fell 29-22 to their bitter rivals. “It’s a disappointing loss but in retrospect to the first half it was a win as far as how we grew and how we started maintaining the ball. In the second half we got to our feet and we really took it to them.”
With the Clan holding the upper hand at 29-5, tries by Baillie, Graeme Scott and Adam Bontus and a conversion by Australian import Troy Jeffs catapulted the firsts to within seven points of the leaders with less than 10 minutes remaining.
“In the second half obviously things changed. They had a big lead on us, but we really came back and showed St. Albert heart and almost came out with a W,” Baillie said.
The Clan took the foot off the pedal in the second half after going full throttle to put the firsts in a stranglehold.
“We started off pretty strong and motivated and got some quick scores on the board. We’re really proud of the first half,” said Wilko Jansen van Rensburg, a physical force at lock for the Clan. “We then leaned a little back, got comfortable and they scored a few tries but we held them off until the end and won the game.”
In the sixth minute the Clan kicked a penalty from inside the 40-metre line to start the season opener.
The first of their four tries was off a scrum in the 14th minute as the runner slipped through tackles en route to the try area. The conversion left the firsts trailing by 10.
The Clan closed out the first half with tries five minutes apart on glaring miscues by the firsts. The last score was converted.
The best the firsts could do was a penalty attempt by Jeffs from outside the 40 that was wide of the posts in the 20th minute.
“We won’t use the excuse that it was our first time together but we looked rusty out there,” said head coach Jo Hull. “We had quite a slow start but they played pretty tactically. They came to us and they had the possession.
“We just weren’t winning our own balls so we weren’t winning the breakdown.”
A rash of injuries in a robust first half forced Hull to dip into the reserve pool of players. Among the walking wounded in the forward ranks was eight-man Byron Elliott and captain Brett Kelly.
At halftime the firsts regrouped after taking it on the chin.
“I asked the guys to turn it around and play our game. We got on the front foot and I’m really, really proud of the fact we scored four tries in the second half and took it to them,” said Hull of the firsts recording a bonus point with the four tries.
The firsts attacked the Clan with a sense of urgency to kick off the second half. Second-half sub Graeme Scott rattled off a long run but was sent sprawling by a high tackle around the Clan’s 22. Scrum-half Jake Robinson was later stopped inside the five-metre line and then junior hooker Robert Blunden threw the ball away in tight of the try line instead of running with it.
A few plays later, junior forward Trent Bennett scored off a St. Albert lineout from the five-metre line and Jeffs was unsuccessful on the conversion.
The Clan padded their lead one minute after losing a player to a sin-bin infraction and the conversion put the 2012 provincial finalists up by 24.
Five minutes after the try, and the firsts still with the man advantage, Baillie hurled himself over the try line off a penalty play and Jeffs’ conversion was no good.
After the Clan held up a try, Robinson set-up Scott for a try and Jeffs split the uprights.
On the kickoff, Bontus cranked it up a notch with a thunderous run into the try area and Jeffs wasn’t able to convert the try.
Jeffs, a 22-year-old standoff, struggled kicking the ball. It’s unclear if the newcomer to St. Albert can consistently kick from Ashley Hanson distance.
The second half featured several little skirmishes on the sundrenched pitch that went undetected by the referee and touch judges.
“We were pretty happy to play them in the first game. We played against these guys in the 7’s tournament (recently in Jasper). We lost against them so it was payback today,” said Jansen van Rensburg, 23, a first-year Clan player who hails from Namibia. “It was just our motivation, training and the urge to win that did it for us today.”
The loss was St. Albert’s fifth in the last six tilts between the top two premier teams in the north. Last year the Clan shredded the firsts 61-15 in the Ken Ann Cup playoff to determine the Edmonton Rugby Union rep at provincials. The loss ended a streak of four consecutive trips to the premier final by the firsts, who beat the Clan by margins of 10 and three points in the last two north finals before last year’s playoff pratfall.
“I think it’s just more in our head than anything,” said Baillie, 22, a member of the first Labatt’s Cup provincial championship team in St. Albert history in 2010. “The guys just needed a wakeup call today. We were able to adjust in the second half and we’re going to take that level and continue forward from there.”
Unlike previous years, the Alberta Cup fixtures is now a balanced seven-team home-and-away schedule so the firsts don’t have to worry about the Clan until their season-ending Sept. 7 clash at Airways Park.
The next match for the firsts is May 25 against the Calgary Irish at 10:30 a.m. at Leduc.
