A couple of tough losses resulted from the Charles Hays Secondary (CHSS) Rainmakers senior boys’ rugby team’s travels this week. Though the athletes competed hard, they fell a tad short against some stiff competition.
Andy Enns, coach of the Rainmakers, spoke about the type of rugby the team is playing, and the boys’ results travelling to Smithers and Burns Lake.
“We are playing ‘fifteens’ in the spring season … Earlier in the year we played some ‘twelves’ where we borrowed some players from Terrace to field a full squad. In this new format we played Smithers first and they are a very strong team. They trounced us in the first half so we, as coaches, decided to go with uncontested scrums in the second half. That allowed the backs to finally get the ball into their hands and run a bit,” Enns said.
“Dionte Stephens scored several tries that half with Dylan Mackenzie demonstrating a great individual effort to go end-to-end. None of my trained scrum-halves travelled this weekend, so Kohen Chan played his first games as a scrum-half for us. He did very well.”
The final score was 38-22 Smithers.
In the final game, the team played against the Burns Lake Lakers. Coach Enns was proud of the performance, but the game ended early.
“We again borrowed players and played a tough battle against the home team. It was a seesaw affair where it seemed we took turns scoring but the ’Makers were in the process of finishing a drive that would see us potentially tie it up when continued heckling from the sidelines annoyed the ref so much that he quit the game.”
When the ref had left, the Rainmakers were trailing 24-17. Stephens had a great game, scoring all three of the Makers’ tries in the final game against Burns Lake.
