The Cowichan Valley Lumberjacks finished ScrumFest at Claremont Secondary last week without a win, but still accomplished all their goals for the rugby tournament.
“ScrumFest was great,” Lumberjacks coach Tom Fogarty said. “With 80 per cent Grade 10s and 90 per cent rookies this year, our goal was to simply get better each game and hopefully put some points on the board, and that’s what we did.”
The T-Birds opened with a 34-0 loss to Kitsilano on Thursday.
“We started of very slowly, probably due to nervousness, and they broke our line with powerful runs from their fly half and offloading abilities,” Fogarty said. “We adjusted in the second half and kept them scoreless, but we were unable to capitalize when we had the ball close to their line.”
The next day, they played to a 5-0 loss to Calgary’s Bishop Carroll High School.
“This was an extremely close and physical affair in very wet and muddy conditions,” Fogarty said. “We had our chances but again due to lack of composure and not continuing with the structure and systems when we get near the goal line, we were unable to get points for all the hard work put in.”
The Piggies scored two tries in their final game, but still lost 17-10 to South Delta.
“We continued to show improvements throughout the tournament, and this game everything started to finally come together,” Fogarty said. “The boys came out firing and stuck to our systems.”
Griffin Diaczuk and Aydan Crawford scored their tries in the first half. The Piggies gave field time to some of their less experienced players as the game progressed, and a spate of missed tackles allowed South Delta to pull ahead. Fullback Hew Garriock was Cowichan’s player of the game for his tackling skills.
Cowichan will visit Nanaimo District this Wednesday, and will host Ladysmith on April 25.
