Capilano RFC Match Reports - Saturday September 17th, 2022

September 17th a full slate of games at Klahanie:

A real rugby fest today at West Vancouver’s Klahanie Park. The Capilano RFC managed to field 5 teams today. Two women’s sides and three men’s.

3rd Division Women

Capilano 3rd. Division Women host Langley RFC at 10:00 AM. Langley won this game but it was fairly competitive. The final score was 40-31, congratulations to the Langley team on the victory. Capilano tries were scored by Mel Hope, Shelby Slay, Heather Muir, Dominique Hart and Abigail Gilson. Mel Hope added three converts.

2nd Division Men
Caps won this close game by a score of 10-7. It was very competitive with good tackling by both sides. Caps scored early and then added a penalty kick by Liam Burdick. Meralomas fought back with a late try and threatened to win it but Caps managed to hang on for the victory. Congratulations to the Capilano 2nd’s on their win. Caps look to have some good young talent on this team and it is positive that they have enough numbers to make it work albeit they are short of front row players and had to have no contest scrums. Still it was a good match to watch.

1st Division Women

The Capilano Women won this game handily by a score of 62-12 over a young Meraloma side. Tries came in bunches for the Caps but the Lomas fought hard and managed a couple of late scores. Unfortunately a Meraloma player was injured late in the game and had to be taken to hospital with a knee injury. We wish her a speedy recovery. This injury necessitated moving the Men’s Premier reserve game to the top field. Capilano tries were scored by Nicola Jones x2, Beth Dueck, Genevieve Bittorf, Sarah Bill x3 and Dani Fearns x2. Sarah Bill added two converts and Dani Fearns also added 4 converts.

Men’s Premier Reserve
Meralomas won 52-12

This game was dominated by the Meralomas that look to have quite a lot of talent. I was quite impressed by their backs who showed a lot of flair in this win. Caps Chris Robinson played well and got away on some early breaks. Chris was unlucky not to have scored a second try but the rugby ball bounced the wrong direction on his chip kick. Chris was subbed out in the second half so he could be on the bench for the Premiers. Meralomas won this game handily and Caps have a lot of work to do to get back to the winning track.

Premier Men

This game was a well contested match. Caps were fortunate to have two of the best kickers in the league in Jeremy Simon and Mike Moloney and these two put on quite a clinic on kicking for field advantage. They also both kicked successfully for goal, and some nice 50-22 kicks to win lineout throw ins. Speaking of which, Capilano hooker James Ritzema had an excellent game throwing in. He has obviously been practicing as he had problems in his previous game against Raven’s. Today his throws were right on! Caps played a portion of the game with 14 men as Glen McKinnon was yellow carded for high tackles. Glen was hitting hard as he usually does. His hits would not have been flagged under the previous laws but now anything above the waist is considered to be dangerous. I thought that Mark Abercrombie was harsh in his decision to flag Glen for the second hit, but I researched the laws and according to new laws he was correct in his decision. After watching several international games many hits are above the waist but if it is hard the player is likely to get called. Caps made some tactical changes at the half bringing on Johnny Franklin and Jordan Harvey. Unfortunately Johnny Franklin took a head knock and had to be removed to be assessed. He did not return. Jordan Harvey’s play was very helpful. For Meralomas’ Ben Featherstone hit a couple of long penalty kicks. The Meralomas kept fighting and scored on the last play of the match. The stands were full of supporters from both clubs and it was a great day of rugby. Next week Caps are away at Rowing Club.

Thanks to all the match officials from the five games at Klahanie and many thanks as always to Jim Leith for the postgame food.

By: John Langley