It was baptism by fire for a foothills women’s rugby team on the weekend.
The Foothills Lions Rugby Club’s first ever U18 women’s team was put together for the Stampede Sevens Tournament, July 7 at the Calgary Rugby Union, where the debutants posted a respectable mark of one win and two losses.
Lions coach Aaron Langstraat said his newly formed club made an impressive debut.
“This is the first year we’ve had team and they did all right for the first time out,” Langstraat said. “Most of the girls have played a bit of rugby, but they’ve only had two weeks of practices.”
Lion Sydney Sharp, one of three members of the Lions from the Highwood High Mustangs, was proud of the way Foothills came together given their lack of experience playing under the same banner.
“I think we did really well for never having played a game together for a lot of us,” Sharp said.
The Lions, composed of players from Highwood, Oilfields High and Holy Trinity Academy, dropped their first tilt 43-0 to the Tie Dyes, but responded from the inauspicious start to earn their lone victory over the Saracens by a 15-12 count just hours later.
“We were just excited about the game and learned from what we did wrong in the previous game and practiced in between the games and decided that we can do this,” Sharp said of the victory. “We were all positive about it and we won.”
Sharp has limited experience in sevens rugby and said it presents unique challenges unseen in traditional fifteens rugby, namely the 10 minute halves and amount of speed of the game.
“I’d say just the less players on the field and trying to keep up with really fast pace,” Sharp said of the difficulties in transitioning to sevens. “It’s a lot shorter of a game so you don’t really get to know your opponents as well as you do when you’re playing half-an-hour halves.”
Sharp, the scrum-half for the Highwood Mustangs as a Grade 10 student this season, also had to get accustomed to the dissimilar positional responsibilities in sevens rugby.
“I was still scrum-half, but it didn’t happen all the time it was just whoever was there did the job,” said the 15-year-old Sharp.
The Lions girls impressed enough at the Stampede Sevens to be offered a chance to play in the newly created Calgary Rugby Union Women’s U19 division for the 2013 season, a decision the rugby club is still wrestling with.
“Next year we will try to build on the program,” Langstraat said. “We’re hoping to join the Calgary Rugby Union and as well we will take part in the sevens tournament.”
The Lions are also seeking to add a Senior women’s team for the 2013 season — to continue the expansion of a blossoming program which added a Division II Senior men’s team for the 2012 season.
Langstraat, the coach of Oilfields High School’s Senior boys and girls rugby teams, said the depth of talent in the foothills area high schools is substantial.
“A women’s team would work pretty well considering the size of the programs at the high school level,” he said. “We could probably have a Senior women’s team, but I think the foundation will be laid with the U19 or U16 teams.”
Langstraat said it would be wise for the Lions women’s program to follow Joe Buck’s model with the Lions Academy and its players starting together in their early teens leading to an experienced crop once they reach the Senior level.
Sharp said should the Lions field a team again next season she will again be competing at the Stampede Sevens and for years to come if Foothills adds a U19 or Senior women’s team.
“I love rugby and love being able to play it over the summer when everyone’s out of school,” she said.
