AN EARLY DEFICIT WAS TOO BIG TO OVERCOME FOR A STRUGGLING GEES SQUAD
The air was humid, sweat glistening on the players’ foreheads on alumni night at Matt Anthony Field, honouring the 25th anniversary of the Gee-Gees Men’s rugby program. Their opponents, the McGill Redbirds, had to hear hundreds of U of O rugby alumni yell their lungs out. Nevertheless, the Redbirds, sitting third in the RSEQ, were the favourite to win this matchup against the sixth-place Gees.
After 80 minutes filled with hard-fought rugby, scrappy fights, and horrible refereeing, the Gees were utterly defeated by the Redbirds 45-19.
To start the game, the Redbirds opened the scoring after a lineout close to the Gees’ zone, immediately followed by an interception from Max Bernhart, which led to another try. The kick from Martin Laval was good, and the Gees trailed 12-0 early in the first half.
The Gees were as close as it gets to scoring when an unfortunate knock-on occurred on the Redbirds’ try line, forcing a scrum in McGill’s favour. However, a penalty on the Redbirds gave the ball back to the Gees, and in came Shayan Jalli Ticona with the Gee-Gees’ first try of the game, 12-5.
After several questionable decisions from the referee, being blind to the offside offenses, the Redbirds were in for another try to take back their 12-point lead with five minutes remaining in the first half.
Just three minutes later, a prolonged tackle from a Gee turned into a massive fight between the two teams, heating the atmosphere at the usually peaceful Matt Anthony Field.
The crowd became dead silent when the Redbirds winger intercepted a bouncing Gees pass and ran it in for another try, and the kick was good from Laval, 24-5 for McGill going into the half.
Early into the second half, the Redbirds found a 3-on-1 opportunity to break the Gees for yet another try from Roberto Frascione, the kick from Laval was perfect, and the Gees trailed 26.
The big number one, Joshua Seguin, was fired up after his try, rampaging through the defence and slamming it down, with a kick from Ben Holahan, the score was still 31-12.
Just minutes later, Seguin was in for yet another try, fueling the Gees’ comeback—conversion from Holahan was good and the lead shortened back to 12. However, that deficit was too big with just 12 minutes remaining.
The Gee-Gees’ dreams were shut down once again as Caylan MacLean of the Redbirds came in off the bench for a try, with a good kick from Laval, the Gees were down 38-19 with little time left in the game.
As the game came to a close, the teams once again started to tussle— it seemed like the bench players still had a little flame left in them, going out with a bang with a final score of 45-19 for the Redbirds.
Coach James Flemming had high praise for his team despite the loss: “I felt as if we defended quite well, but they did a really good job in transition at putting kicks in tough spots for us to defend. We tip the cap to them there. I think we handed them two tries in the first half via intercept and a recovered bobble that went the length of the field. Erase those two [tries] and we have a two-point lead in the 65th minute after our rally. Just goes to show you how tight the margins are when you play a great team like McGill.”
To much of everyone’s concern, Coach Flemming also commented on the poor refereeing of the match, “I think it’s very important to have a great referee, it makes it so that everyone can focus on their roles. It’s important to remember that everyone involved is human, and just like players, can make mistakes.” Kindly said, and wise from Coach Flemming, who has probably experienced his fair share of poor refereeing, everyone makes mistakes.
The Gees have yet to taste victory three games into the regular season, but with all the toughest opponents out of the way, they look forward to next week’s game against the second-place Montreal Carabins before taking it back to Matt Anthony Field for one last dance against the Concordia Stingers on Friday, Sept. 10.
