A Castlegar rugby alumnus has been selected for the U23 Canada Rugby Team.
Matthew Liszt, who played for Stanley Humphries Secondary School’s (SHSS) rugby team, has been playing rugby league for the Vancouver Rowing Club as a centre since graduating last year.
“And all the games were filmed, so the coach of the Canadian squad reviews all of them. The games are kind of try outs and he selects players off of what they can show on their games,” explained Liszt.
He found out he made the team July 23 and says he felt “super honoured and humbled that I get the chance to represent my country.”
Liszt will begin training with the rest of the team right away to prepare for the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia.
The 18-year-old first started playing rugby when he was in Grade 10 at SHSS, learning from coach Neil Bermel.
“I actually owe a lot of my success to him. He taught me a lot,” said Liszt.
The alumnus isn’t the only local rugby player who’s been getting attention.
Two of SHSS’s players joined a U18 BC regional team to play in the Provincial Regional Championships in Burnaby.
Ashley Van Rensburg, 18 and going into Grade 12, plays fly-half and tried out for the regional team in Kelowna on May 13. His friend and teammate, Chayce Szabo came with him to offer support.
“And after two weeks of hanging around there and practicing with them, the coach just asked me to join the team,” explained Szabo.
Van Rensburg and Szabo both headed to the Provincial Regional Championships, which took place July 1-3, with the regional team. Though when they got there, things didn’t go as well as they would have liked.
“We won one game,” said Van Rensburg.
“Let’s say we got slaughtered most of the time,” said Szabo. “But it was a good experience and fun to learn, and I played well.”
Szabo is 16 and going into Grade 11. He plays scrum-half and said the experience also taught him the responsibility of being part of a team, a lesson that will be useful when SHSS’s season resumes.
But while things didn’t go well for the regional team in Kelowna, Van Rensburg made the BC Province camp, where he tried out for the provincial team.
“I did really well, but didn’t make the team,” he said.
With Van Rensburg at the provincial camp were Rowan Megale and Ezra Harding from Nelson. Megale made the BC U18 Boys XV team and Harding made the BC U17 Boys team.
Van Rensburg wanted to give a shout out to one of the team’s coaches, who also happened to be from Nelson.
“I want to say thank you to Nikolas Wood from Nelson,” he said.
