St. Mary’s College is back from its’ tour of New Zealand and just in time to finish off the Gaels’ California Conference schedule.

Santa Clara (Saturday) and Cal Poly (April 9) remain, and Coach Johnny Everett, who accompanied the team to New Zealand, said the trip has re-energized the squad for the coming month of action.

“It was very successful,” Everett told Goff Rugby Report. “Overall we played well. We worked on getting quick ball and handling the lineouts and the contact zone. It was a good team-bonding experience, as well.”

St. Mary’s took 33 players on the trip, so on days they played two games they didn’t have a lot of wiggle room on subs. But it didn’t seem to matter. The Gaels defeated Ngongotaha 36-22 and 43-10 on March 19, Petone Colts and Petone U17s comfortably, and lost to High School Old Boys RFC.

Everett acknowledged that it’s not always easy to get the right competition on a tour, and certainly the Petone U17s were a shade young to face the St. Mary’s 2nds.

“For most of the teams we caught them at the beginning of their year, and so we were able to wear them down,” he said.

In addition to playing the games, the St. Mary’s team visited Rotorua, where you can street-luge down the mountain, and visited the New Zealand Rugby Museum in Palmerston North and various cultural sights in Wellington.

In between that were some rugby activities. Jim Love at the New Zealand Sports Academy worked with the players, and the team also enjoyed a session with Wellington Hurricanes U20 Coach Darren Larsen. They toured Christchurch, and also attended a club match. In addition, the players met Brian “Aussie” McLean, the New Zealand All Blacks defense coach, for a Q&A session. The players peppered McLean with all sorts of questions. 

Freshman Aaron Matthews, a former HS All American, continues to develop. Michael Geib photo.

“To be in a country where you can be immersed in rugby 24-7 is great for the guys, and they were eating it up,” said Everett, who added that both Love and Larsen gave the teams some added techniques on handling ball-slowers in the breakdown.

The St. Mary’s back-rowers Vili Helu, Kevin O’Connor, Marcus Viscardi, and Alec Barton seemed to blossom during the trip, and needed to as back row play and working the poach and the breakdown was something the team needed to nail down.

In the backs, freshman Aaron Matthews continues to go from strength to strength, and Dylan Audsley was a crucial performer, as always. Liam Cotter stepped in to some new roles very well.

“It’s a great way to re-energize for the rest of the season,” said Everett, and indeed there’s a lot of rugby left to play. The Gaels will face Santa Clara and Cal Poly, and if, as expected, they win, they will have won the California Conference and should enter the DIA playoffs among the top seed. From then it’s three straight weekends to the DIA final, which is hosted at St. Mary’s home stadium, so you’d figure they’d want to be in the game.