Both teams showed the effects of an enforced month long layoff with some sloppy handling early.  Brantford scored the first try when a perfect Barclay Luke chip settled into the hands of wing Mark Jacklyn, Luke converting. Luke added a penalty minutes later to up the lead to 10-0.

Ed Gardner struck a penalty to make it 10-3, Dave Stratton's 25 meter dash evened the score, and wing Tom Madden tallied in the corner on half time to give the greens a 15-10 lead at the break.

With the wind in the second half, Irish began to gain the upper hand, and lock Ramzi Azar touched down twice, with a Jason Verstraten penalty in between to give the Irish a 31-13 lead.  A quick tap in injury time narrowed the gap to 31-18, but Gardner touched down immediately after to bring the final margin to 38-18, five tries to two.

"I don't think the layoff helped anyone," said Irish coach Mark Winokur afterwards.  "We were particularly unfocused the first 30 minutes or so-but we seemed to get going just before half time, and the second half was at least competent.  Brantford have some good talent and I think they will do very well in the league this year."

The development side broke all sorts of records by running in 14 (fourteen!) tries in a 90-28 annihilation of their hosts-clearly we will have many selection challenges this week.  The thirds, with a young back line, were full value for their 29-8 win over Brantford, and the team will only get stronger.

Burlington Centaurs visit Fletchers this Saturday, and the Irish will be short a number of starters due to Canada East commitments. "We will find out soon about our depth," said Winokur, "and I look forward to working with our 15 most committed players this week."