Before the game had even begun Nelson’s Grizzlies had a victory against Trail.
Trail was short players, which meant they defaulted giving the Grizzlies the win.
Both teams played despite Trail being shorthanded and Grizzlies players put on red and black for the afternoon.
“It was a good game,” said coach Scott Cormie. “Now we’re off to Cranbrook for the final. We beat Cranbrook here, and they beat us there, but Cranbrook beat Trail in trail and we lost our first game of the season to Trail.”
The final score of Saturday’s game was 52-0.
Cormies said the team will be losing a couple of players for the finals but he is confident in the line-up headed to Cranbrook.
“We will have most of the guys here and a bunch of players from the high school team,” he said. “It will be nice to bring some of those younger guys into the fold.”
The finals are on July 14 and the Grizzlies are hopeful that they will come home with a win.
“If we win that game then we would represent the Kootenay division in the third division provincials,” said Cormie.
The Grizzlies have yet to represent the Kootenays in the provincials and Cormie is excited that this year could be their year.
“Cranbrook has a mix of old and young players,” he said. “They’ve got some guys from out of town. When we went there and lost we lost in the last 10 minutes. It was quite a close game and that was sort of without our fire power guys, so if we bring them along I think we can be pretty confident.”
The Grizzlies have enjoyed an infusion of young players this year thanks to the enthusiasm of the L.V. Rogers Bombers teams.
“Our team is quite old in places so it’s really great to bring the youth in. That’s really what it is all about, keeping rugby alive. We want to keep them involved and encourage them to carry on with it in other places,” said Cormie.
The rugby community is excited with the direction that the sport is going in the community with the exuberance of the young players and new goal posts thanks to funds from the City.
