The senior rugby team defeated SMUS 34-0 yesterday to repeat as BC AA Champions. It was a decisive victory for a team that has rarely been tested since they returned from Australia in early April. The Cavs rolled over the Blue Jags who were struggling with injury issues and simply could not contend with Collingwood's physical play on offence or defence.
Collingwood opened the scoring when Kirk Fuller bashed his way across to give the Cavs a 5-0 lead. It was Kirk's third try in two games as teams simply could not stop him when he ran low and hard.
Lucas Okano followed this up with a quick-tap penalty which caught the Blue Jags napping. With a 10-0 lead, the Cavs kept up the pressure. Although they blew a couple of marvelous opportunities to score, they were awarded a penalty and Graeme Neill slotted the kick to make it 13-0.
Graeme followed this up almost immediately with a line-break through the middle of the SMUS defence. With only the fullback at his mercy, Graeme easily stepped him and scored under the posts. At the stroke of halftime, it was 20-0 and the game was all but over.
Collingwood kept up the pressure in the second half and SMUS rarely escaped their own half. When Graeme scored his second try of the game and then converted it, it was 27-0. Linus Hartner then scored to make it 34-0 and the Cavs began to celebrate in earnest.
The entire team played incredibly well as the team defence approach completely shut down the SMUS offence that has been used to running up big scores this year. Thomas Foote was particularly notable as she shut down the Blue Jag's most feared weapon. Collingwood's inside three were also true forces as Graeme, Thomas Simon and Nate Holm made strong tackle after tackle throughout the game.
Collingwood will now say goodbye to an amazing group of Grads. Many of them played in both championship wins and they leave with a record of 21-0 in the last two years against BC opposition. The BC AA trophy will now back in the Collingwood trophy case for a record ninth time.
2019 BC AA Champions
Graeme Neill scored two tries, one penalty and three conversions to notch 19 points for the Cavs in their impressive win yesterday.
The return of team captain Tyler Preston buoyed the team as Tyler had a number of terrific runs and was his usual dominant self in lineouts.
Sebastian Hutton (with ball) Kirk Fuller and Wes Caplan all had fantastic games yesterday.
The Cavs may be losing some amazing Grade 12's but the future looks bright. Harry Philpotts (tackler) Bill Yao, Peter Qu, Joey Ficocelli and Spencer Boyd will all be back next year.
In the past two years, the Collingwood squad has posted a 24-4 record with all four losses coming from Australian teams. An impressive record to be sure!