Irish Canadian Rugby Club 78 - Brampton Beavers 0
May 5th, 2007
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The Irish Women played their first game of the year on Ontario soil as they took on the Brampton Beavers in a pre-season match up.  Brampton are the defending TRU Champions and are looking to repeat their 2006 success this season and win promotion to the OWL in 2008.  Coming off a successful mini-tour to Montreal, the Irish were looking to continue building towards the season opener in three weeks time with a strong performance against one of the up and coming sides in Ontario rugby.

Despite still missing several regulars, the Irish fielded a stronger side than the one that took to the pitch in Montreal.  With a little more experience and fire power in the line-up, the Irish turned in an overpowering performance as they absolutely dominated a young and inexperienced Brampton side.  Unlike the previous week, the women in green were much more clinical in their ability to finish movements and thus produced 14 trys for a 78-0 blowout victory.  The Irish forwards set the tone right off the kick-off as they moved the ball through 19 phases, drove the Brampton pack onto its goal line where Kayla Ellefson continued her stellar play this season by crashing over for the opening try just 2 minutes into the game.  Tabitha Stavrou scored the first of what is sure to be many trys for the club just 2 minutes later as she ran through a host of tacklers to score in the right corner.  She later added two more trys in the half and showed why she was a prized acquisition in the off-season.  The rest of the half continued in similar fashion as the Irish took advantage of their superior size and strength up front to dominate their opponents.  Other first half trys were scored by Beth Rideout with two, Barb Lamb, Cassy Mersel, while Tanya Thompson added three conversions and a penalty kick to make the halftime score 49-0.

The second half continued along pretty much in the same vein as Stavrou took the opening kick-off, shrugged off two tackles and then chipped and chased for her fourth try of the game.  2006 Irish MVP Jackie Scott got into the act in the second half as the Brampton backline had no answer for her powerful mid-field runs as she ran in two trys while Ashley Scott, Danika Mason and Barb Lamb also touched down.  Thompson and Paige Churchill each added a conversion to finish the scoring at 78-0.  “It is really easy to lose your shape and do things out of the ordinary when games get out of hand like today, but I was pleased that we continued to execute and stuck to our style of play when it was so easy for the players to deviate away from it.” commented Irish coach Rodin Lozada.  “It is a sign of a team that is maturing and one that knows how to play within their limits and capabilities despite our relative youth.”

The Irish’s pre-season preparations come to an end next Saturday as they travel down the QEW for a final exhibition match against a combined NRU Sr. Women/Stoney Creek side.  Kick-off is set for 12:00pm at Saltfleet High School in Stoney Creek.  The OWL season begins on Saturday May 26^th with the Irish traveling to Waterloo County to open the defence of their Cup Championship.