Gaels, Lopes Kick Off 2024 Right
Gaels, Lopes Kick Off 2024 Right
In this weekend’s installment of “be careful what you wish for” Saint Mary’s makes the trip to Phoenix to play Grand Canyon University in the first weekend of January.
It’s a slow weekend in college rugby to be sure and anyone playing would be forgiven for taking it easy, but these guys haven’t. GCU enters the meat of its independent D1A schedule while Saint Mary’s follows this game up with a trip to British Columbia to take on Trinity Western and University of British Columbia.
Right now, both sides are still looking at what they have and what they can accomplish.
“We are going down there to play a really good group of players with a professional coaching setup,” said Saint Mary’s head Coach Tim O’Brien. “I think I have yet to get the fall playing equation right. I will get it right at some points but we have had a bit of an odd preseason this year. We will certainly find out a lot about ourselves in this game.”
With a B-side game also on the slate this trip was certainly worth it for the Gaels. O’Brien said scheduling, and finding games for every player, is a major part of what he does.
“Kids don’t come out for rugby to practice, they come out to play, and if they need to develop they need 12 to 15 games in which to do it. So it’s important for everyone to get games.”
Saint Mary’s is coming in with a lot of really nice pieces to the puzzle. They are led by fifth-year seniors Kaipono Koyashi, who is the team captain, with Inoke Waqavesi and Erich Storti part of the leadership group. All of them will be important as the Gaels face a stern challenge in Arizona.
GCU, meanwhile, is talented, but young, Head Coach Sean O’Leary needed to ramp up the recruiting when he took over the program and as a result they have only a handful of seniors and barely more than that for juniors. The freshmen and sophomores are very good, but they might need some time (although O’Leary said the sophomore class has stepped into any leadership void that appears and done well).
The good news and the bad news, in a way, is that they have a lot of USA U20 candidates. Some is good. A lot? Well they would be hoping for more experience.
“We love playing Saint Mary’s,” enthused O’Leary. “This is the kind of game we want. We’ve got teams such as Cal, Utah, Teas A&M, and Mount St. Mary’s on our schedule and this is all part of our goal to challenge for a National Championship. To do that we have to play and learn to beat teams like Saint Mary’s. I love how they play and the guys are fired up about it.”
Jackson Gray has emerged as a key leader for the ‘Lopes and young Ben Saunders (turned 18 in the fall) is a talented #10 who is learning.
The game itself kicks off at noon Mountain Time, and will be held in GCU’s soccer stadium. It’s a measure of where the rugby team sits in the pecking order that all of their home games will be in the stadium this spring.
