Coyote varsity girls rugby to use teamwork and leadership

The Chinook Coyotes senior girls rugby team will use teamwork, communication and leadership to band together success this season.

“We have the skills,” said head coach Alaya French.

“We just need to make sure that we’re all supporting each other the whole time.”

The Coyotes will rely on solid backs leadership from Lucy Fallwell and Reese Ferguson.

“They’re definitely the fastest people on the team and they’re the ones we’re going to look to get that back line going,” said French.

The team will rely on forward captain Marah Stonehocker to lead the pack there.

“She’s in Grade 11, but she is such a natural born leader and basically everybody just loves her,” said French.

Getting third at last year’s provincials will hopefully be a momentum carrier going into this season.

“I want to use that as motivation and keep that momentum going and hopefully comeback with gold (at) provincials this year,” said French.

French did admit the team does struggle with numbers.

“We just didn’t get quite as many girls out this year which is a blessing and a curse,” she said.

“It’s hard when injuries happen but having less numbers means the girls got to work harder and they get more one-on-one coaching time.”

Fallwell wants to encourage her teammates. “They already work so hard for me,” said Fallwell. “Like I don’t have to ask a lot from them. It’s just like kind of just reminding them of our end goal, like during games because rugby, it’s a pretty brutal sport. You kind of ... keep on encouraging and making them know that you’re here to fight and that’s rugby.”

The Coyotes will look to an Okotoks tournament this weekend to see where they stand early on in the season.

“We get the chance to play some teams that we’ve never seen before,” said French.

“It should give us a good run and give us a good gage (of )where we’re at.”