Last year the senior boysโ rugby team at EDSS had a full bench and players to spare, while the junior team was hanging on by a thread.
โLast year, the juniors we did on life support. We only had 16, 17 kids all year and we play 15 of them,โ said coach Craig Stuart.
This year, itโs the opposite story; the junior team has 10 or 12 more players than the seniors, and that added depth on the bench is showing in their season.
The juniors had a record of 3-2 heading into Thursdayโs match, with two close losses to rugby powerhouses Sir John A. MacDonald and Bluevale Collegiate.
Stuart said the junior team has enough players to give them more options on the field, allowing the coaches to tailor the lineup to the opponent theyโre facing.
Stuart coaches both junior and senior boys, with help from fellow teacher Carl Smith and parent Tony Hoffman.
Points are spread fairly evenly around the league for the juniors, and a win in Thursdayโs match would guarantee them a playoff berth. The seniors, with a record of 2-3, needed a win to have a shot at the playoffs.
โThe kids weโve got are nice, we just need more of them. This is a triple-A school playing in a quad-A league,โ Stuart said. โItโs pretty hard to be competitive on a consistent basis; you just donโt have the same draw.โ
Stuart said participation in rugby tends to rise and fall from year to year; between part time jobs and other commitments, itโs hard to get older students to come out for the team.
โBeing a rural school, the halls are empty 10 minutes after the bell; everybodyโs jumped on the bus and gone home,โ he said. โThere seems to be out here a lot more parental pressure on kids to get part-time jobs. My first five years were at Grand River and I never had to fight the way I do out here to get kids to play year after year.โ
Where the soccer team competes as a varsity squad with players from Grades 9 through 12, Stuart wonโt even consider doing that with rugby.
St. Davidโs is the only school in the league that plays as a varsity team, and it shows in their scores; their closest game was a 38-0 loss, and the worst, a 58-0 blasting.
โI donโt think itโd be safe because then youโd have young kids playing against men. It might work in soccer, but in rugby I think youโre inviting injuries,โ Stuart said. โIf it comes to that, then we just shut it down, because Iโm not taking kids out there just to get them beat up.โ
