A ruck in the muck

[attach]5795[/attach]Neither rain nor sleet nor snow was going to stop Leaside High School’s girls rugby team from battling it out against North Toronto Collegiate.

The two teams had to deal with all types of weather during the course of their match held at Central Technical School on Apr. 24. However, Leaside’s head coach Vanessa Mo did not blame her team’s 7–0 loss on the weather.

“We’ve been playing in this weather all week,” she said. “On Monday it was pouring down rain and we still practised. This morning we were out at 7 a.m. and it was snowing on us and hailing on us.”

In fact, Mo gave no excuses despite the fact her team was noticeably outsized. She said the Lions’ team motto is “size matters not” and that mantra was put to the test right from the start of their second game of the season.

On the first play of the game, North Toronto forward Sarah Glazier returned the kick off and used her size to plough through the line of Leaside defenders. But when the defence recovered and brought her down a few metres past midfield, even North Toronto’s coaching staff was impressed with the play.

“I was shocked and I think everybody was shocked and I think maybe that’s why we didn’t score,” said North Toronto co-coach April Scott-Clarke. “It was one of our more experienced players, so I guess it shouldn’t have really been that surprising.”

Leaside remained on the defensive in the opening minutes as they struggled to deal with the strength of North Toronto’s players. Glazier was able to break through their lines once again, this time making it past the goal line for the first try of the game and easily kicked home the conversion for an extra two points.

Down seven points, the Lions started to fight back. Whenever North Toronto made some progress up the field, Leaside would kick the ball back down into their opponents’ zone. On one play, Leaside’s Mikayla Vattiata raced down field to recover one such kick before North Toronto could get a hand on it. She stopped inches away from the goal line and her teammates were unable to push her past it.

For nearly the entire remainder of the first half the ball was just metres away from North Toronto’s goal, but Leaside just couldn’t get past the line despite multiple close chances.

“It was a little heartbreaking when we were that close and we couldn’t get the try, but I know that my girls know what we have to do for our next game,” Vattiata said. “I know we’re going to get those tries.”

At halftime the rain started to fall and by the time the second half began it had turned into hail. Although both teams denied the weather was an issue it did seem to affect play on the field. There were more minor injuries than scoring chances in the second stanza and neither team seemed to have an advantage. Mo explained the deadlock by saying her players realized they could compete against their opponent.

“They know that the girls can be bigger than them but it doesn’t mean they’re smarter than them,” Mo said. “That’s one of the things I’m really proud of them for today. They really learned how to be more aggressive and they learned how to not be intimidated because of the size of the other team.”