Saint Mary's Looks North as 2023 Opens
Saint Mary's Looks North as 2023 Opens
Only one college rugby game this weekend but it is the kickoff for the New Year.
Saint Mary's will, weather willing, host Trinity Western out of British Columbia. For TW, this is a tough test for a team that finished fourth in the Canadian University Men's Rugby Championships. Trinity Western beat UVic 23-22 in the quarterfinals but dropped two other close game, 17-11 to McGill and 32-31 to Guelph. UBC went on to win the whole thing, more on them later.
So this is a difficult matchup for both teams, as Saint Mary's is the defending national runners-up in the US. The two teams have only played once before (Saint Mary's won) but the Trinity Western Spartans field a team with some impressive players, including National Championships first-team all-stars Ethan Jurgeneit and Matthew Willemse, and second-team all-stars Scott Bowers, Nate Schroeder, and Lynden Duggan.
For Saint Mary's, they are carrying some early injuries, but loose forward King Matu is possibly finally healthy and bringing some power; Joe Yacoubian is back after two nasty injuries, and freshman Dominic Desag (De La Salle) looks solid in his opening run-outs.
Head Coach Tim O'Brien quoted assistant coach Andrew Cook about their season, saying "it feels like we went from using a bike with training wheels to riding in the Tour de France."
After a series of warmup games in the fall, the Gaels will play two of the top four college teams in Canada over the next two weeks, their regular conference schedule, a non-conference schedule that includes Central Washington, BYU, and Cal, and then finally their tour of England and Ireland that was halted by COVID in 2021.
T-Birds Around the Corner
That other top four college team is University of British Columbia. UBC has had a long tradition of playing Cal but that isn't happening this year. The old World Cup, or World News Cup, has actually been played between a top BC college team and a top California team, and has involved UCLA and USC at certain times (mostly a long time ago). But generally it has been UBC vs Cal. This year Cal has West Point and the US Naval Academy on their schedule and, it seems, didn't have room for UBC.
So the Thunderbirds have looked to Saint Mary's.
“Unfortunately our annual series with Cal wasn’t able to happen," said UBC Head Coach Curry Hitchborn. "We looked at the history of the World News Cup and it states the best university team In California plays the best university team in BC. There used to be multiple universities involved and hopefully we can all build back to that moving forward."
And Saint Mary's did beat Cal in the D1A playoffs.
"I feel very confident that this is the appropriate direction this historical competition can continue to take," said Hitchborn. "Best on best usually makes the best. St. Mary’s will give us that opportunity.
