With the promises of rain all week, the men's first and reserves teams headed out to Beaconsfield to open their regular season after being promoted to division 1. Luckily the skies stayed clear, and the boys were treated to a sunny day on the field as well as on the scoreboard.
The first game of the day were the reserves, led by captain PP Gros who was making his glorious return to the town after spending a few years in glorious Minnesota (ask him he will tell you how fun it is there). The reserves got off to a slow start despite holding possession for much of the game, Beaco managed to get on the scoreboard first crossing for 5 points. Scotty Fennell playing at 10 away from his usual spot at 15, led the troops down the field, and the boys really decided to throw the ball around out there and came up with two tries in the final 7 minutes of the half.
As the seconds continued to move down the field, PP decided to put on the burners on and ran half of the field to set up another TMR try (the cost of the run was a hamstring). The backs continued to move the ball around and expose the tired Beaconsfield team, with Brice Delisle crossing over the white paint. It then became time for the forwards to take over, led by strong running from Aaron Butler, Corey White, and Lucas Hotton, the reserves managed to score 5 second half tries, leading the way was Lucas with 3, and Fadri "Faddi" Horber with another. One the final whistle sounded, the reserves earned a 37-5 bonus point victory. It was clear to everyone who watched that the reserves will be a force to be reckoned with this season.
The second game of the day had the firsts playing against arch-rivals Beaco. The game started with the first methodically going through their structure and marching down the pitch. If not for 3 or 4 penalties taken by Beaconsfield they surely would have scored. Taking advantage of an advantage was Pierre Constantin who managed to kick a cheeky drop-goal. As high 5s were given to Pierre the play restarted and the boys started to march again. This time they settled for 2 Paul Cote penalties. On the next restart the firsts began to drive again, and they had noticed that when they kept it in the forwards they were grinding down the Beaconsfield defence. Which eventually led to a try off the back of the scrum by 8 man Norman Baker. The first off ended with the teams again trading blows back and forth.
At the start of the next interval, open side flanker Ian Campos kept up his stellar play from last season and relentlessly pressured the Beaco 10, which eventually led to an intercept try by johnny on the spot, Pierre Constantin. Moments later, in a near repeat Etienne Bouchard showed off his sick crossfit form and managed to score his own intercept try. Beaco managed to push back in the last 15 minutes of the second half, but who really wants to read about that, the final score was 33-17 for the good guys.
After the match Beaconsfield did a great job of hosting the TMR men, providing us with free pizza and beer. Thanks for the hospitality! Later that evening the men returned to the clubhouse and had a great time celebrating a great opening weekend with the Women.
Cheers Ben!!
Reading about the men winning is all well and good, but there was some bad news that occurred on the field. Last year's finals MVP Ben "baby face" Belland, suffered another concussion which will sadly end his rugby career. Ben is a great guy on the field and an even better guy off it, so its awful news to hear. In lieu of flowers, Ben is hoping for some clubhouse beers when his head is fixed.
Thanks to Norman Baker for the game recap