Irish Canadian Rugby Club 56 - Ottawa Banshees 0
06 / 08 / 05
OWL Playoffs

The quest for the OWL Cup began last weekend for the Irish Canadian Women with a quarter-final match-up against the second place team in the Eastern Ontario Premier Division – the Ottawa Banshees.  As well the Irish Women 2^nd team started the defence of their 2004 championship facing Waterloo County.

In a thoroughly dominating performance, the Irish easily moved onto the next round with a ten try 56 – 0 victory over a road weary and under strength opponent.  The Irish back-line continued to fire on all cylinders and proved to be too much for the Banshees as the Irish punched holes in the Banshee defence all game long.  The first try of the game was from a brilliant passage of play from the women in green.  They took the opening kick-off and moved the ball around the field and through nine phases of play before Jackie Scott touched down in the left corner and gave all supporters a glimpse of what was to come.  Scott finished an excellent individual performance with two more trys while fullback Lindsey Bernrot also scored three trys in her return from injury.  Singles were scored by Kirsten Sample, Karen Lozada, Beth Rideout and a penalty try was awarded.  Sarah DeLeeuw added 2 conversions while Jane Segal rounded out the scoring with a conversion.  “Things were really clicking today.  It was good to see us finally start putting things together on the field for 80 minutes” stated Captain Jane Segal.

The Irish 2^nd XV was forced to dig deep against an inspired Waterloo County side that was strengthened by several 1^st team players.  Finding themselves down 5 – 7 with less than five minutes left, the young Irish team finally found a hole in the Waterloo defence and try scoring sensation Karen Dillane touched down her second try of the game for the dramatic come from behind 10-7 victory.

Up next for the Irish is a pair of tantalizing semi-final matches on August 13^th.  Both teams face the Toronto Scottish in the winner take all games.  The Scottish 1^st XV are the defending league and cup champions and are coming off a convincing victory over the Irish six weeks ago.  “We will be ready for them.  Luckily the game is not played on paper and where there is a will, there is a way” stated optimistic head coach Rodin Lozada.  The Irish 2^nd XV face the same team they defeated in last year’s Division 2 Final and will be looking to repeat that performance this weekend.  The matches take place at Fletcher’s Fields with kick-off at 12:00pm for the 2^nd XV and 1:30pm for the 1^st XV.