You win some. You lose some.
After opening the Big Sky Rugby Union high school season with a gritty 24-19 win over Oilfields in Black Diamond, the Cochrane Rugby senior boys hit an impenetrable shield in Okotoks. Ahead in size, skill and play execution, the Holy Trinity High School Knights (3-2) blanked visiting Cochrane Rugby (1-1) 36-0 on April 29.
Talk about inhospitable hosts.
“They were a good team for sure. One of the best in the league,” said Cochrane Rugby’s Rylen Waugh of Knights. “They have a bunch of Alberta players on that team.”
Undeterred, Waugh was pleased with his team’s improvement from its first match April 23. The Cochrane side has players from Bow Valley and Cochrane high schools.
“For sure. Last game we got called for a bunch of high tackles,” he relayed. “All week at practice, we were working on defensive alignment and tackling. It really improved in this game.”
Cochrane Rugby’s Marshall van Iderstine who, like Waugh, attends Bow Valley High, likes the makeup of the Cochrane Rugby team. The majority of players in this eclectic group are first-year Grade 10s new to the sport, but very athletic. You have a world-class wrestler (Cochrane High’s Brendan McKeage), a major-junior football player (Grayson Javorsky), a wrestler-football player (Cole Peron) and three-sport guys like van Iderstine (hockey, football, rugby).
“Sort of a rag-tag band,” van Iderstine said of Cochrane Rugby. “Like Rylen said, we only have a couple of guys who’ve played rugby before. Everybody’s learning quick. We’ve only had a couple of weeks of practice so it’s been awesome.”
The athleticism of its players makes up for Cochrane Rugby’s lack of experience.
“The whole athlete instinct. All these guys are sports guys together,” van Iderstine said. “Just that drive you have to have to come and hit a guy twice your size, just sports altogether helps with that.”
Thurs. May 7
Cochrane Rugby at Chestermere High
5 p.m. (girls); 6:30 p.m. (boys)
