Tries five minutes apart by David Owen and Ashley Hanson in the late stages of Saturday’s comeback charge capped off the seventh win in eight games by St. Albert’s super seconds.
“That really got the boys fired up. That’s when we knew we were going to tie the bow on this,” said Luke Racine, a bruising prop, after the wild 39-32 affair against the Nor’Westers at the St. Albert Rugby Football Club.
Owen’s second try of the afternoon, and the eighth in four games by the Welsh Bullet, catapulted St. Albert into its first lead of the match. The consensus team MVP buffaloed the fatigued-looking Nor’Westers with an opportunistic tap-and-go off a penalty from outside the five-metre line with seven minutes to play.
“We had a scrum and we wheeled it and they complained about it, so that turned it into a penalty and Di took off and scored,” Racine said. “That was the turning point, just manhandling their scrum in their end and, on the quick tap, Di scored.”
Hanson’s try with two minutes to go sealed the deal. After forward Dominik Jenni bulldozed his way through several defenders to get within striking distance of the try line, the ball was distributed to Hanson. While using winger Nathan Reis as a decoy, the newly minted 31-year-old ran a long route from left to right in front of the scrum line before cutting a sharp corner into the try area.
“After that try by Ash, we knew then we had them by the [throat],” Racine said with a mischievous grin.
The showdown between the championship contenders in the Edmonton Rugby Union kicked off with the Nor’Westers scoring converted tries in the seventh and 13th minutes against the slow-moving seconds to lead by 14.
“After we gave up that first try, we knew we had to put something together or that was going to be it,” said Racine, who subbed on for the labouring Chris Butlin in the 33rd minute with the Nor’Westers up 14-7.
The seconds cut the lead in half with a converted try in the 29th minute. The scoring play by Matt Herod was orchestrated by a thunderous run towards the posts by Nick Gies, followed by a series of quick passes by Frank Lucas, Hanson and Justin (Bomber) Armitt to spring the winger loose.
With five minutes left until the break, Owen split the defence with an explosive dash from outside the halfway line and, with one defender to beat, he spun the ball to Armitt for the try.
The first half ended with a penalty kick by the Nor’Westers to make it 17-12.
A couple of ferocious defensive stand by the seconds with their backs pinned to the try line kept the score respectable.
The second half was only two minutes old when the Nor’Westers barely cracked the try line to lead by 10.
After stopping the Nor’Westers in their tracks in front of the try line, the seconds threatened to score, but turned the ball over and the visitors went on to record their fourth try in the 51st minute.
The seconds refused to fold, though, and stormed back with tries by Braden Platten and Owen. Platten showed tremendous hustle chasing down a kick in the try area, and when the ball was too hot to handle for the last defender, he pounced on it like a cat for points in the 53rd minute. Three minutes later, Owen emerged unscathed from a pack of defenders and broke a couple of tackles for a try under the posts. Hanson’s conversion left the seconds down by three.
The Nor’Westers replied with a try in the 63rd minute after several crash balls deep in St. Albert’s end created an opening to extend to the lead to 32-24.
With the game slipping way, the seconds ramped up the pressure and were rewarded with an extra-effort try by Reis to cut the deficit to 32-29. Off a scrum ball, Hanson fed Reis along the touchline and the little winger stiff-armed a defender in the face while diving over the try line.
It was all downhill then for the Nor’Westers as the seconds poured the heat on to complete the comeback.
At the end of the nasty contest, captain Sean LeLacheur, last year’s MVP for the seconds, had blood oozing through a bandage wrapped around his melon.
“It was moral support more than anything that got us back on top,” Racine said. “We knew that we had a pretty deadly back line, so we just kept sucking them in up front and made them commit more guys to the inside and then we’d spin it out wide. It wasn’t like we were doing that in the first half; we were just making basic handling errors that didn’t let us exploit their defence. In the second half, it wasn’t like we were inventing the light bulb. We just needed to catch the ball.”
Racine, 23, was among a handful of seconds on the sun-baked pitch Saturday who have contributed at the premier level for the 7-3 first division squad. The valuable newcomer from the Castaway Wanderers grew up playing rugby in Markham, Ont., followed by stops at McMaster University and Oakville before spending two years on the West Coast with Castaway.
“It’s definitely a big rugby culture there. It’s like an eight-month season and it’s pretty intense. We had maybe two weeks off. When we were training, it wasn’t light stuff; there was a lot of running.”
The seconds close out their fixtures Thursday against the Clansmen (5-5) at Airways Park and Sept. 1 against the Nor’Westers at Ellerslie Rugby Park. Game times are 7 p.m. The seconds and Nor’Westers have identical 7-3 records, but the division leaders have two more bonus points than second-place St. Albert. Also in the mix for first place is Leduc Crude (6-4), the 2010 provincial champions who beat St. Albert 39-15 in last year’s division final.
The top two teams host the Sept. 17 semifinals.
“The goal is to run the table. If we do that, then we’re first,” Racine said.
