Defence used to be the calling card for Okotoks’ senior rugby squad, now it’s costing them crucial late season games.
The Foothills Lions lost 36-26 to the Calgary Rams in a high-scoring affair, dropping their record in the Calgary Rugby Union men’s third division to 6-5 with just one regular season game remaining.
“Our defence has been our pillar for the last two years and the last four games it hasn’t been there,” said Lions coach Darcy Gallant.
After opening the season 4-0, the Lions have now lost five of their last six games and are in danger of missing out on the Tier III playoffs.
Foothills sits in third place in the third division standings with 33 points, just four points ahead of its next opponent, the Calgary Canucks. The top four teams in the standings automatically qualify for the playoffs.
The Lions and Canucks play tonight (Wednesday) at the Calgary Rugby Union field. Foothills controls its own destiny – if the Lions beat the Canucks they qualify for the playoffs.
The Canucks beat the Lions 22-5 on Aug. 12 in Okotoks in their only match-up this season.
“We are a young team that still hasn’t taken that extra step and we’ve got to take it pretty quick or we won’t be in the playoffs,” Gallant said.
Foothills dominated possession to start the game but made several costly mistakes, including a dropped ball on a wide open play five yards from the try line, allowing the opportunistic Rams to build a first half-lead.
“The game is between your ears,” said Gallant. “We had mental errors, we should have scored in the first 20 minutes, we had an overlap knock then a three-man overlap and didn’t score.
“And then with being a young team that error turns into multiple errors and they come down and score quickly and the wind comes out of our sails and then it just kind of snowballed.”
The Lions were within reach of the Rams at halftime, trailing just 15-7, but gave up a try just seconds after the referee blew the whistle to start the second half. It was one of three scores on long outside runs for the Rams in the final 40 minutes.
“We had a hard time on our defence coming up quick and they were hitting our back line hard,” said Lions tight head prop Dennis Samek. “We just needed to come up faster and tougher.”
Defensive inefficiencies aside, the Lions coach said he was pleased with the 26 points his team produced.
“Our forwards played awesome tonight,” Gallant said. “We had some guys that were dinged up and guys that are rookies playing a lot of minutes and I couldn’t of asked for anymore from them.”
Samek said Foothills can take positives out of the resilience they showed late in the game. The Lions matched the Rams try for try in the second half, notching a respectable 19 points.
“We were down pretty much the whole second half and we kept fighting back and started playing as a team,” Samek said.
