Count coach Scott Megraw as just one of many impressed with the rapid development of rugby player Kelsey McKinnon.
The hard work clearing the hurdles necessary to get the Cremona High School student onto the combined Cochrane/Bow Valley High CobraCats team was worth the effort.
In half a year of rugby, McKinnon has gone from raw talent to front-row player for Team Alberta’s under-16-year-old (U16) girl’s team. Team Alberta hosts the national rugby festival in Calgary in early August.
The younger sister of Cochrane Cobras grad and University of Regina Rams football rookie of the year Bryce McKinnon is blazing her own trail.
“She came to rugby with some very rough skills,” Megraw, a hooker with the Bow Valley Grizzlies men’s team, recalled of the loose-head prop who played for him with the CobraCats and now plays in northeast Calgary with the Irish U17 girl’s program. “She is an absolute joy to coach. She picked up ball-handling very, very easily. She’s turned out to be an absolute prize in the contact area. Her tackling and running with the ball is second to none.
“I’ve seen her drop her shoulder on girls two years senior and, actually, she’s put them on their backsides. It takes 3-4 girls to stop her when she has the ball.”
Unable to assemble a full U17 girl’s side under the Bow Valley Grizzlies’ tent this season, Megraw has taken McKinnon, Mikayla Andrews and other Cochrane-area girls to the Calgary Canadian Irish Athletic Club for the summer season. He’s coaching them there. Andrews has attended several Alberta U18 women’s camps and is still in the running for a provincial roster spot at the August national tournament in Calgary.
McKinnon is a lock for the U16 roster.
“For a girl who is 15 years old, to play in the front row, is a very, very big thing,” Megraw observed. “To be selected for Alberta - and she’s played rugby just 6-7 months - in the front row, which is a very technical position is hugely impressive.”
Other Bow Valley rugby players making provincial teams include: Cameron Turner, Oscar Holborough, Alex Royall and Isaiah Springer, who have all been selected for the Alberta U14 boy’s team. Rylen Waugh and Craig DelaMare, have been selected for the Alberta U16 boy’s team.
