A longer season and tougher teams promises to bring out the best in the ladies of the pitch at the St. Albert Rugby Football Club.
The SARFC women will scrum down in the Edmonton Rugby Union’s new division one format instead of competing in the spring league to determine the Alberta first division and ERU second division teams for the rest of the fixtures.
Last year SARFC finished 2-4 in Alberta division one after going 7-2 in the spring league.
“We weren’t getting some of the competition that would’ve helped us progress. We noticed out there a sharp increase in the skill level once we went into first division so to be able to play there all year long is going to make a huge difference,” said forward Jasmine Fleming.
The ERU created a women’s development committee in the offseason and Fleming was the SARFC representative.
“One of the things we talked about is how can we get more girls playing and more games so one of the solutions to that was to have the divisions set at the beginning of the year because then we can make the schedule and you know what weekends you get off so you’re not missing huge chunks because of vacation,” said SARFC vice-president.
“Also, you’re not playing outside of where you should be playing. A lot of the second division clubs were getting discouraged because they were getting beat (by lopsided scores).”
SARFC will ruck and maul in 12 matches against Crude/West, Pirates, Grande Prairie Sirens and Clanswomen and the top four teams make the playoffs. The ERU final is Sept. 24 but there is no Alberta championship since the Calgary Rugby Union didn’t get on board with the new structure to extend the season to the end of September.
“They weren’t in agreement,” Fleming said. “We’ll revisit how it worked next year.”
The SARFC fixtures kick-off May 14 against Crude/West at the Nor’Westers.
It was a long winter for SARFC after losing the Alberta first division semifinal 65-5 to the Calgary Saracens, the eventual provincial champions. It was 26-5 at halftime.
“A lot of us from last year are still left with a little bit of a bad taste in our mouth from that loss in the semifinals in Calgary so keeping that in mind we’re focused a lot coming into this season. A lot of us train pretty hard in the offseason. We had a trainer working with both the men’s and women’s teams (Shara Vigeant of SVPT Fitness + Athletics) and she is great so a lot of us did that program,” Fleming said.
“We’re really taking things seriously. Last year with the seeding round, you needed to make top four to go into first div but it’s not the same kind of intensity as first div. Now, we’re playing these teams in our division three times each so I think by the end there is going to be grudge matches.”
The women’s program has made huge strides with Byron Elliott and Ashley Hanson as coaches and a strong core from the 2014 provincial and ERU second division champions (11-4 overall) has been reinforced with graduating high school players and other newcomers.
“It’s going to be a good year. We have a lot of the young girls coming in,” Fleming said. “We’ve had 16 or 18 to training, which is pretty good for this time of the year, and there are those ones you know that are coming that just didn’t think we would be outside this quick so they’re reorganizing their work schedules.
“We’re looking at about 25 girls before even high school ends and then we’ll get girls like Sydney (De La Mare, a U18 Team Canada forward) and the Dewitt twins once the high school season is over.”
Fleming’s contributions off the pitch were recognized at the ERU awards banquet as the recipient of the 2015 outstanding club administrator.
“It was nice to get it because I got some votes from some other clubs as well so to know that internally within St. Albert that I was valued but to get it from outside of our club meant a lot as well,” said the ERU secretary. “I do try and help out other clubs, especially ones that are kind of up and coming or like up and coming in first division or are trying to develop their women’s program so it was nice that was recognized.”
The last two years Fleming served as a member at large on the ERU board.
“I just want to be able to help influence and be part of the decision making because a lot of decisions affect our club, like with the premier men and now with the seeding with the women. I like to be a part of those and be able to give our opinion and kind of represent our viewpoints.”
It’s opened up a new door for Fleming.
“I’ve learned a lot, especially about leadership,” said the SARFC senior rugby director the last four years. “There is a lot that people don’t know that go on in the background, even little things like budgeting, recruiting imports, trying to find a coach and that was difficult as well, funding things and grants.”
Fleming, 29, played a ton of sports growing up in Fort McMurray – she was even in 4H and was a rodeo participant – before turning her attention to tennis with the University of Alberta program. However, she had never stepped foot on a rugby field until she was recruited by SARFC as a trainer while working at St. Albert Physio.
“Some players came in and they were looking for trainers and that’s what I went to school for so I started out doing that and then after a season Sean LeLacheur (SARFC president) convinced me. He said ‘You’re pretty organized. You want to get on the board?’ So then I got nominated and voted in before I even played and then I started getting into things and I figured I should probably give this a try,” said the Westwood Community High School alumna.
