On a foggy Sunday afternoon, the Concordia Stingers faced of against the McGill Redmen, in a battle for the RSEQ Men's Rugby Championship. The coaching prowess of Nick "Oscar" Park was going up against some young TMR talent in Aaron Butler, Lucas "Styles" Hotton, and Eric Samuel.
It was a final that started off as a bit of a stalemate, with both sides putting up a strong defensive showing. This was reflected in the halftime score of 6-3 Con U. After the break things started to open up a bit, and both sides looked for any available gap. Concordia's big men started strong driving mauls down the field, but McGill always answered back with strong tackling pushing the Stingers back. An early penalty had stretched Concordia's lead, but it was McGill who were the first to cross the white paint with a fantastic conversion to follow from the sideline. As the minutes counted down the 7 point lead looked like it would see the Redmen to the end. Concordia had different ideas. A drive down the field on the last play of the game eventually allowed Concordia to get the score in front of the sticks and take the game into 20 minutes of overtime.
Both sides had given their best but the intensity didn't die down in the extra period. Concordia scored early and took the 21-16 lead, but this was a short-lived lead as McGill came straight back and put the ball down underneath the posts. Unfortunately the conversion was missed and the game went back to being even stevens. The momentum that the Redmen had from the try seemed to ebb away and the Stingers pushed to get the go ahead try and conversion. It was then down to the forwards to keep the ball for the remaining time and the Stingers took the win 28-21.
Congratulations to the Concordia University Mens Rugby Team on taking the RSEQ Championship, and well done to our boys who worked hard all season to get the Stingers to this point.
You can watch the game here
TMR's Golden Boys (left to right) Aaron Butler, Eric Samuel and Lucas Hotton