The rugby team defeated DW Poppy 29-17 today to win their BC AA quarter-final. The Cavs will now face long-time rival Brentwood College in their semi-final tomorrow. The game is at 5:00 at Abbotsford's Rotary Stadium Fields.
The Cavs were on the front foot right from the opening whistle but squandered two outstanding scoring opportunities early in the game. This was sadly to be an ongoing pattern throughout the game.
However, Collingwood was the first to get on the board when Presley Bosa crashed over. Shortly afterwards, Ryder Kanewske dummied his way through the Poppy defence and scored right under the posts. Max Price's conversion made it 12-0. When James Foote powered his way across for the Cavs third try and Max converted, it looked like Collingwood were on their way to an easy victory.
However, Poppy was not done by a long shot. After some ill-discipline led to three straight penalties, Poppy scored under the posts to make it 19-7 at half.
After some stout defensive work had kept Poppy at bay, Ryder's second try of the game seemed to right the Collingwood ship. This try came after a fantastic run by Jack Farrar, who broke away after Coach Larisch's powerful 'Zedenator' line-out play had sent Poppy tumbling backwards on defence.
Once again, Poppy stormed back. With Collingwood being penalized off the park, the Redhawks' flyhalf put in a beautifully weighted grub-kick off a quick tap and then followed the ball into the in-goal area to touch it down. Suddenly, it was game on again as Collingwood only led by 10.
When Poppy kicked a penalty with less than five minutes left in the game, the lead was cut to 7 points. However, a powerful run by Elliot Wardle set up Presley was his second try of the game.
Ryder Kanewske scored two tries today and was very solid on the counter-attack.
Collingwood's two props had outstanding days. Quinn Reynolds (Left) was his usual hard-working self doing all the dirty work that is needed to win games. Jack was also a force around the field and had two massive runs off the 'Zedenator' line-out play.
Collingwood will now try to make their third straight BC AA Final by defeating Brentwood tomorrow.