Shamrocks’ defence back in business
The ferocious defence that Victoria Shamrocks fans have come to know and love over the past two seasons returned to the forefront on Friday.
Coach Bob Heyes wants to see more of it in Maple Ridge tonight at 6:45 p.m. as the now 1-2 Shamrocks — 11-5 winners over the Burnaby Lakers on Friday — face the 0-1 Burrards.
Rugged defenceman Rory Smith set the tone with his physical play on Friday and the Harnett brothers, Jon and Greg, and Tyler Burton and Ben McCullough followed suit, not that they need much coaxing.
Transition player Karsen Leung was also stellar in his home debut in the 2015 Western Lacrosse Association season and he, for one, knows the value of adding Smith on defence.
“Rory is great to have on our back end, real tough and I don’t think many guys are going to mess with him this year. It just brings an even more physical presence to our defence as well,” said Leung, who finished with a goal and an assist and proved his value in the transition game once again. “He’s always banging and always crashing, and that just lifts a team and gives us energy.
“You see a guy banging so hard that it gets you to play as hard as him,” Leung added.
Smith’s ability to change the dynamics of this team is also not lost on Heyes.
“He adds a different dimension to this team which we haven’t seen, which is great. It’s one that is needed to be better than we have been,” Heyes said.
“Not that it’s going to spread throughout the team and we’re all going to turn in a bunch of Rory Smiths, but it’s that extra little valued dimension.”
Smith was a pain in the side of the Lakers all night long and, in the end, was tagged for 19 minutes in penalties. As the outing became extremely chippy near game’s end, the aggressive defenceman was holding back Tyler Digby with one hand and Casey Jackson with the other, much to the delight of the appreciative fans.
“I talked to him a little bit after the game about some of the penal- ties, but he’s a smart guy, he knows when to do things and when not to do things,” said Heyes, who was tickled about his overall team defence in the win.
“It’s really nice to see us have that defence back. You get some of those key personnel guys back and they play that relentless defence. That was nice to see,” Heyes said. “There is still lots of room for improvement though. I think our mental game is still a little off, but it was nice. They had an extra step in their game.”
He also liked what he saw from his offence with Scott Ranger, newcomer Daryl Veltman, veteran Corey Small and Jesse King stepping up.
“And Matt Roik made big saves when we needed them,” Heyes added.
In other words, it was a fairly complete outing.
“I’m happy with the performance [Friday]. The guys will feel good about their game and now we go into Maple Ridge, who we played last year in the playoffs, and they’ll play us physical, so we have to be ready for them,” Heyes said.