One of Alberta’s best Junior rugby teams is about to get a taste of how the sport is practiced overseas.
The Foothills U15 Lions will play host to the Audenshaw School from Manchester, England for an exhibition tilt and exchange of culture as the vaunted program sets course on a three-week tour of Canada.
Lions’ head coach Joe Buck said his players will benefit from the quality club they will face on the pitch for the July 17 game at John Paul II Collegiate in Okotoks.
“We just want to give the kids a different view of the game,” Buck said. “They’ll be playing an experienced team and that’s going to be good for them, they’ll have fun with that.”
Buck said the Lions can expect to see top-notch competition from the Manchester school.
“The analogy always is imagine a Canadian hockey team going down to Britain to play hockey,” Buck said. “They’ll get culture exchange and get to see some players play rugby that will be probably quite skilled.
“They’ll get a memorable experience they won’t forget.”
Lions’ inside-centre Brenden Hansen, for one, is raring to get on the pitch.
“Our level of excitement I would have to say is 10 out of 10,” Hansen said. “They’re a British team, they’ve been raised into rugby, they know what they’re doing.”
Hansen said the tilt should prove a great learning experience for the rookie-laden Lions’ roster.
“Our team we have a lot of athleticism and everybody is just learning how to play rugby,” he said. “When we see a British team and see how the ball moves it’s just going to work perfectly and it’s just going to make us a lot better.”
The Lions, second place in the Calgary Rugby Union (CRU) U15 boys standings with a mark of 5-1, enter the match on a high as they’re coming off a 41-0 victory over the Calgary Saracens on July 7.
“We’ll be up for it for sure,” Buck said. “They’re going to move the ball well and we’re going to have make sure we deal with the high ball because they’ll kick and we will need to be able to catch balls clean and not make mistakes on the breakdown because they’ll capitalize on all of the mistakes we make.”
Foothills has been in a league of its own for parts of the CRU slate, with a 34-5 loss to the Calgary Canucks serving as the only stain on an otherwise perfect 2012 campaign.
“We keep impressing on the kids to make sure it’s about playing the game well, not about the outcome and that’s how we keep them grounded,” Buck said.
With just one game left prior to the postseason, the fixture with Audenshaw comes at the perfect time for the Lions.
“We’re second and hopefully we will get to the city (finals) and go at it,” Buck said. “The timing for this tough game is great for us.”
The exhibition match is just part of the Audenshaw tour itinerary in the foothills.
“We’re going to hit up an (Okotoks) Dawgs game, they want to see some Canadian culture and what we do here,” Hansen said. “We’re going to billet them, when we had Team Alberta down here we billeted and I really enjoyed it.
“I love sharing a room especially with another team because that’s when the trash talk starts and you get the friendly competition.”
The Audenshaw versus Foothills contest goes at 4 p.m. on July 17 at the John Paul II Collegiate field in Okotoks. For more information go to www.foothillsrugbyclub.com.
