Wolfpack stalks rugby championship
Scattered across Western Canada at various club-level matches on Saturday, members of the Prairie Wolfpack will be keeping an eye on a rugby game being played some 6,500 km away.
That would be the Canadian Rugby Championship match between the Ontario Blues and Atlantic Rock in Newfoundland.
The Calgary-based Wolfpack can win the championship trophy if the Blues fail to get a bonus point in the 11:30 a.m. match and also fail to beat them on points differential. The Wolfpack have a +36 advantage in that department after upsetting the Blues 29-26 last weekend in Peterborough, Ont. — snapping the three-time defending champion’s 18-game winning streak.
Even after the win moved the Wolfpack’s CRC record to 5-1 — (their only loss was to the Blues in Edmonton earlier this month) — their championship fate isn’t in their hands, instead resting on the shoulders of the winless Rock.
Would they ever owe their Atlantic rivals a case of something special if they could manufacture an upset.
“We’ve done everything we can,” said Wolfpack head coach Graeme Moffat of Calgary. “We’ll be watching the game closely, but we’re pleased with how we’ve come (along) this year and we’ll start building towards next year regardless of whether we win or not.
“It would be great to win it because we’ve never won it before, but if we don’t we’ve still had a good season.”
The Wolfpack have been a serial bridesmaid in the Canadian Rugby Championship, which prompted an email from club alumnus Hubert Buydens — now playing in New Zealand — to Moffat at the beginning of the season.
“At the start of the campaign he said, ‘good wins against B.C. All the best on the rest of the campaign. Try not to finish second again,’” Moffat related with a smile.
“We’re consistently the bridesmaids and that’s where we are at the moment.”
But perhaps with a little help they might get the first trophy in club history. Regardless, their win over the Blues is a bit of a landmark moment in the program.
“We had no idea what kind of winning streak they’d had because we hadn’t paid that close of attention,” said Moffat. “So after the game, that’s the first we found out … Obviously we were pretty pleased.”
A big difference from when they lost to the Ontario side 28-3 in their opening match of the CRC campaign.
“I think tactically we were a bit smarter in the way that we played and how we counteracted some of their strengths,” explained Moffat.
Now it remains to see if they’ll get the last laugh.
RUGBY NOTES: The Wolfpack have seven players selected for Team Canada’s entry at the Americas Rugby Championship — Clayton Panga, Gordon McRorie, Nick Blevins, Kyle Gilmour, Nanyak Dala, James Smith and Evan Olmstead. Moffat will be one of the squad’s coaches for the Oct.1-20 event in Lanford, B.C .Canada will face Uruguay Oct. 11, the U.S.A. Oct. 15 and Argentina on Oct. 19.