Central Washington will play at Saint Mary's Saturday in a relatively hastily-prepared game that brings the Gaels back to competition more than a year after everything was shut down.

things have not looked positive for Saint Mary's since then, what with California's pathway to returning to normalcy being a slow and winding one. But slowly the Gaels have been working on training and trying to get back to competition. This game came together fairly quickly, but if it happens (there's always an if), this will be a key warmup as the Gaels are slated to play Cal in a week.

"We are excited to finish up our short season against one of the premier collegiate programs in the nation," said CWU Head Coach Todd Thornley. "Saint Mary's have historically played some outstanding rugby so this will be a great test to see how much we have improved over the past month; they are a great test for us and will come out of the blocks hard. If we can produce top quality ball at set-piece and play in the right areas of the field then we have a chance of producing the outcome our group desperately wants."

The game is an opportunity to gauge where the Wildcats are, for sure, but this has to be a fairly rusty Saint Mary's team going into the game.

The Gaels were very young last year, and ideally they'd be going into this game with some additional experience. They will have to rely on the tests that 2020 has given everyone to have brought them forward.

Thornley talked about that, too.

"We are just so grateful for all the work our athletic department and wider university community have done to ensure we can safely compete against some great programs this past month," he said. "We owe it to everyone who has helped us to put in a performance."

Kickoff is set for 1pm Pacific Time on Saturday. It will be live streamed here>>

Central Washington was in the middle of one of its best season in 2020 when the COVID shutdown hit. The Wildcats and Saint Mary's were slated to play March 21, 2020, but of course that game was canceled.