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March 1, 2010

Whew...what an emotional weekend...GO CANADA GO eh! Great hockey game that couldn't have ended with more excitement! Oh yea...and a rugby weekend that had the Cowichan faithful see some good rugby and an almost victory of the reigning BCRU Champions Meralomas out of Vancouver. I think we are out of the woods and we now compete with the best of these clubs.

* Premier Women: Cowichan 47 vs Port Alberni 5
* 1st Div Men: Cowichan 8 vs Meralomas 0
* Premier Men: Cowichan 19 vs Meralomas 22

It was kind of nice hosting a club similar in makeup as ourselves....Good Women's program, good Junior program, 3 men's sides and a long history of playing good rugby, no carded players.

Our women played the development side from Port Alberni. They showed up with 13 players so the ladies loaned Port a couple and had a pretty good game all in all. Port has one particularly good player at fullback. Great to see Danny Shannon out coaching Port Alberni again (his daughter plays in the forwards). Sometimes that only score is a small yet important victory for new sides like the Black Sheep.....It was good to see Port finally cross the line for their only try against quite a few for Cowichan.

The 1st Div Men, up and down in recent games, had plenty of bodies last Saturday to host a very good Meraloma bunch. The Meralomas were good last year and were the #3 team in the league. It was expected to be perhaps one sided on the day....but....our youngsters played their hearts out and held the bigger, older Lomas scoreless through the whole game. Matt Melgaard had a good game at #10 as did Jordan McGarvey in the centers. In particular though were those good, tough young guys from Ladysmith. At one point we had 4 Ladysmith boys in the scrum (2 props), and although the heavier, more experienced Meraloma scrum pushed us around a bit, the lads held their own and gained much needed experience.

The Fullback for Cowichan, a Grade 12 student at Ladysmith, was chosen as Man of the Match by the Meralomas after the game. This young guy was superb on the day fielding lots of high ball without a drop and making tons of nice runs and tackles to boot. Big Mike Blume and Jake Teufle came in in the second half and immediately put the average age of the Cowichan squad up to 28 from 22 years old. Once these guys went in though, their leadership and experience seemed to spur on the youngsters who were able to go over for the try and then secure the backbreaking 3 point penalty near the end of the game to seal the deal. I heard a disheartened Loma comment after the game, "Man oh Man, I don't need to be playing prop against guys like that! Did you see the size of that guys head and neck!" (Blumer was apparently being nasty)

The 1st's now have a 2-2 record and are in 7th place in league play, one position out of playoffs.

The Premier Men were optimistic on the day as the Mighty Meralomas are the defending Rousefell Champions. With basically the same lie-up for the Lomas as last year including Sean Mercier in the backs, Aiden Buan in the forwards and a very big, seasoned front row.

The game was very interesting in the first half...I don't think the Meralomas got out of their half of the field except for the three long distance try s they scored off Cowichan mishaps off high ball and a lineout miscue . Cowichan played well despite missing Ty Hamblin and Pat Fraser to the Canada U-20 camp, Dan James, John Dunbiel and Ty Cook who are still nursing injuries.

At the end of the first half the score was 19-0 for the Meralomas. At th start of the second half, Tom "Hump" Kerswell received a nice pass and split the Lomas defense for a beautiful try that was converted by Andrew Wood. Cowichan then pressed again (we pressed the whole second half) and I think it was Preston Prestowich that went in for the second score making it 19-14. Meralomas, in their only foray into our side of the field in the second half, benefited from a Cowichan penalty and were able to split the uprights for the 3 points. Score 22-14.

From here on in it was all Cowichan. We went over for another try bringing the score to 22-19. The boys pounded away and good on the very tired Meralomas for holding the line and not allowing the Piggies over for the winning try. At one point the Meralomas had a player in the bin and it was evident that somehow another Meraloma player snuck on as they had 16 players on the field.(15 playing and one in the bin) The play went on for 4-5 minutes near the end of the game before the fans noticed it and the referees shooed the extra player off. The Lomas had another player binned, and with two out for the remainder of the game, the young Piggies just couldn't quite get that ball over the line. Too bad considering we had the momentum and probably should have scored. The final whistle went with Cowichan powering forward at the 5m line when and inadvertent Cowichan knock-on sealed the win for the Meralomas. The Meralomas coaches were some relieved and our guys were angry on not taking the game.....Rats...

Credit has to go to young Scotty McLeod, who played the whole game at loosehead up against a very good Rhodri Hamner of the Lomas. Gord Kehoe had another good game and was selected as Man of the Match by the Meralomas. Kyle Geach was again very steady and Ian Manly kept up his consistent pressure on any opposing player with the ball in hand.

Good games for the spectators. Lots of room for improvement yet!

This weekend will see a road trip over to the Mainland for the Men and Women. The Prems and 1st. Div. Men travel to Jericho Park and will take on the UBC Old Boy Ravens and the Women will take on the Lady Meralomas at Connaught Park.

JJ