Sherwood Park – A mixture of premier and third division players at the St. Albert Rugby Football Club combined to kick off the season with a victory.
Chad Monai-Brophy scored two of the team’s six tries in the 34-7 third division lid-lifter against the Strathcona Druids on a blustery Saturday afternoon at Lynn Davies Rugby Park.
“We had some new guys in and some old guys and some young guys too,” said right-winger Jon Anderson of the SARFC roster of more than 25 players. “We were looking a little sparse on numbers starting out but on Thursday we had a huge glut of guys come out so we were able to put in basically two teams. We just ran through a lot of the guys and get the ball in the hands so to get that game experience right off the bat was really good to start out.”
The Druids also dressed a large lineup with a sprinkling of Alberta Cup premier regulars and their points were a converted try in the 11th minute to even the count at seven apiece.
The thirds stormed back to lead 22-7 at halftime.
“It was tough conditions and really windy. We made a few mistakes but we were just shaking the rust off,” Anderson said. “We started strong and for probably first quarter it was pretty much all us. We were playing really well when we were actually moving it out to the hands and getting it to the wings and scoring on both sides.
“The second half we basically got fresh legs in,” he added. “Everybody was just cleaning up mistakes, things like that. It was getting a little messy on both sides but I guess we were able to clean up on it a little bit more than they were.”
Anderson, 26, was the finisher on the first SARFC try of the season in the seventh minute and Neil Coughlin kicked the conversion.
“It was really technical. We moved it down the forwards the way we should. It came out through the hands and it came down on a two on one. It was either Mitch Millett or Neil Coughlin, the centre or fullback, and he just drew the defender really well and then popped it right out to me and I put it right in the corner,” said the Sturgeon Composite High School alumnus.
Josh Elliott put the thirds on top for good with a punishing run down the left try line after a slick pass by Millett, a premier calibre player who looked in mid-season form against the Druids. Elliott, sporting rugby leggings, bounced off a defender in front of the five-metre line without missing a stride en route to the try area in the 14th minute.
Five minutes later, Luke Richardson made it 17-7 after Anderson touched the ball down short of the try line.
Late in the first half Monai-Brophy, last year’s rookie of the year for the Labatt’s Cup premier provincial champions and co-recipient of the Fort McMurray RFC Shield U18/19 player of the year in the Edmonton Rugby Union, capped off a spirited drive spearhead by Nathan Yue’s devilish run past the halfway line.
Yue, a hooker with the Paul Kane Blues in Grade 12 last year and SARFC junior, was arguable the best player on the pitch for the thirds. He busted off a number of runs for tough yardage, flew head first into contact and stuck his tackles with reckless abandon.
“He had a lot of big hits and a lot of big runs. You could hear everyone cheering for him on the sideline. He played really well,” said Anderson with admiration.
There was no scoring in the third quarter, highlighted by gung-ho rucking by both sides between the 40-metre line.
The thirds also left points on the field on three occasions between the 22- and five-metre lines in the opening eight minutes of the quarter. Penalties were the main downfall from going the distance to the try area.
Monai-Brophy’s second try of the match two minutes into the fourth quarter left the Druids trailing by 20 points.
A try-saving stop by the thirds with 10 minutes remaining kept the Druids from adding to their point totals
The match ended with a dashing try by Paul Flynn and Coughlin’s conversion with the thirds short a player after Matt Herod was yellow carded for something the referee didn’t like.
Flynn, a salty hooker and premier-level performer, skipped past the last two defenders with vigorous stiff-arms to complete one of the longest try runs of his career.
The thirds are shaping up basically as last year’s second division team that finished just short of making the ERU semifinals at 5-6-1. This year SARFC dropped the seconds in order to rebuild the thirds, 1-1-1 in 2013 before injuries and a shortage of players to support three teams at the time forced the club to pull the plug on the thirds three months into the season.
The third division is considered the wild west of ERU rugby in terms of teams dressing an unlimited number of players, from juniors to veterans, with a wide range of talent.
“We’ve kind of been struggling a little bit with numbers the past couple of years. It’s also a big step into second div so with the third div now we’re getting a lot more numbers back out so this is a very good way to start off the season,” said Anderson, who filled in at scrumhalf when Herod was sentenced to the sin-bin.
The thirds travel Saturday to Drayton Valley to scrum down with the Riggers at 2 p.m.
