Despite amount of time spent on defence, Gees outscored Montreal for second win of season
On Sept. 25, the University of Ottawa men’s rugby team returned to Matt Anthony Field to host the University of Montreal Carabins.
Heading into the game, the Gee-Gees had a record of 1-1, suffering their first loss of the season to Concordia just a week ago.
For Montreal, the season has not gotten off to a great start, and they were looking to secure their first win of the season.
Unfortunately for Montreal, the Gee-Gees would not let them have it easy.
It was the Gees who opened up the scoring, pushing the ball into the endzone for a try.
The next possession also looked promising for Ottawa as Sam Mace flew across the field. The stiff arm got him past the first player to challenge him, but he was eventually brought down, and a scrum put the ball into the Carabins hands.
The Gees spent a lot of time deep in their zone being pressured by the Carabins’ offence. The defensive play paid off, and a quick pass from Yenam Zouzoua opened up the field for Simba Gumbo to outrun Montreal’s entire line.
The try put the team in grey up 10-0 and the successful convert by Jamie Armstrong gave the Gee-Gees a 12-0 lead.
The Carabins answered with a try of their own, pushing the ball in from a few yards out. The convert was missed, but the team refused to end the half trailing.
With only seconds remaining in the half, Montreal slipped past the Gee-Gees defence to find the endzone once more. This time, the kick was good, and the teams ended the opening 40 minutes of play all tied up at 12-12.
Gee-Gees assistant coach, Andrew Armstrong, acknowledged that the team made mistakes in the first half.
“[During halftime] we talked about getting back to our game plan, reducing mistakes, and playing simple rugby on attack and I think we did a much better job of it in the second half,” said the coach.
While the U of O was still playing more in their end during the second half, the team was able to prevent the Carabins from scoring.
“We definitely played more defence than we wanted to,” said Andrew Armstrong.
Once the Gees got the ball, Jamie Armstrong put the moves on and put another try on the stat sheet, he finished up the play by kicking the convert, making the score 19-12 in favour of the Gees.
“We played a lot of defence, but we played defence hard,” Jamie Armstrong said. “At half, we took deep breaths, calmed down, and we said to keep the ball in our hands, run hard, keep it simple and we’ll score and that’s what we did.”
The U of O found the endzone one last time before the clock ran out, taking the game 26-12 and moving to 2-1 in the season.
Next, the Gee-Gees are on the road to visit Bishop’s on Oct. 1 for a 7 p.m. start. Bishop has proven themselves this season, and took down the same Concordia team that defeated the U of O. The Gees will be looking to carry their momentum from the win over Montreal to Coulter Field.
