Game Report: Sat. August 21, 2004

Senior Women 2nds Playoffs
Barbs 0 - Scottish 34
The 2nd team finished in second place for the season and played the third place Scottish. While Aurora played a strong game, winning many aspects of their loose game, the Scottish attacked from just too many places. Injuries also took their toll, and the Barbs finished the game with only 13 players. The score, which is not indicative of their excellent efforts, was 34 - 0.

Senior Womens 1sts Semi-Finals
Barbs 7 - Yeomen 21
The 1st team played the Yeomen in a consolation semi-final game. The Yeomen scored quickly, pushing the Barbs around badly for the first 10 minutes. For the rest of the game, Aurora controlled the field, but could not put enough points on the board. Nathalie Bendavid scored the lone Aurora try, and Tara Doctorow kicked the convert. The final score was 21 - 7.

Senior Mens 2nds
Barbs 17 - Oakville 23
The 2nd XV took on the Crusaders from Oakville at home on August 21st, in a much anticipated game, after feeling we could have closed the gap on them in the early part of the season.

This time of the year can be difficult for a 2nd side in this division, as we all struggle after having players called up when students go back to school, and losing others that we could have called up from the 3rd XV. Injuries have also been a challenge to deal with as the season rolls on.

We fielded a team that looked quite good on paper, with 2 of the back line coming down from the 1st XV. But even their influence did not help after the poor display of tackling that was put forth early in the game. The Cru 8 man wreaked havoc on our lackluster defense, and made great gains on several runs, as did their darting fly half.

After a terrible first 10 minutes that saw the CRU put 2 unconverted tries over, we finally gathered ourselves, and were able to mount a bit more of an attack.

The half time score of 15-12 for the CRU gave us a good feeling for the 2nd half. We had fresh legs coming on in several positions, and felt that we had stretched the Cru enough that we could mount an attack by going wide.

This plan did prove successful when we managed to get the ball through the hands, and more points were added on the score board.

The final score of 23-17 was tough to swallow after spending much of the last half in the Oakville half ( reminiscent of our first meeting in the spring ) ..

This team has come a long way, and has developed many new players, but still needs to have the ability to finish close games, and capitalize on scoring opportunities from 5m out.

A solid effort after catching our breath, and the guys should be proud yet again of not throwing in the towel.

We look forward to our next match at home against Brantford to pull together some of the missing pieces from this last weekend.