The Cowichan Piggies played probably their best game of the First Division rugby season last weekend, but it didn’t quite pay off as one late mistake led to a 20-19 loss to Westshore last Saturday.
“Other than the final result, we were pretty happy with the way the game went,” head coach Gord McGeachy said of the team’s regular season finale. “It was a very intense, physical game. Probably the most intense, physical game we’ve been involved in all year. There was a lot of raw emotion, a lot of niggly stuff in the game.
“I felt we carried a lot of the territory and possession. We were unlucky to come away without the victory. We did enough to win, but we had a defensive lapse late in the game to give up a try.”
Cowichan had Westshore under pressure for most of the first half, and got on the board early on a drop goal by Peter Budina and a try by Pat Large.
Velox got on the board around the 30-minute mark, then scored again on the last play of the half to take a 12-8 lead into halftime.
Cowichan started the second half under pressure and gave up a penalty goal to Velox. The Piggies responded just a minute later when an individual effort by James Patterson led to a try. Jenner Teufel kicked a penalty goal to restore the lead for Cowichan, then slotted another one to put his team up 19-15.
As time ticked down, the Piggies made a poor decision on defence, and Westshore made their way down the field to go ahead by a single point with less than two minutes remaining.
“We were able to exert some really good pressure in the last two minutes, but we couldn’t get close enough to score,” McGeachy lamented.
The Piggies will open the playoffs this Saturday, on the road against the Nanaimo Hornets at May Bennett Park at 1 p.m.
Based on last weekend’s game, McGeachy is optimistic that his team can give Nanaimo a good run.
“I feel if we play similar to the way we played on Saturday, where we had total commitment to contact, we’ll have a good chance against Nanaimo,” he said.
