Lethbridge Rugby Club eye trip to cities final

By Lethbridge Herald on August 26, 2022.

Herald File Photo Lethbridge Rugby Club men’s player Kade Langevin battles for posession of the ball in the pile as teammate Alex Halvorsen tries to block a Calgary Saracens defender win this July file photo.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge Rugby Club men’s team is eyeing a trip to the cities championship with a  home win over the Calgary Irish today in the semi-final.

LRC won both of their regular season matches with the Irish this year and the club realizes this is the game that really matters.

“The key to winning is just we have to play our style of rugby more than anything,” said head coach Ryan McKeown.

“The two losses we’ve had this year so far, we’ve been kind of caught up doing things that aren’t what we’re trying to do and  making remedial rookie mistakes throughout games and all that and so we’ve had some good chats throughout the week and I think all the guys have the message that playing simple and playing together is going to work. So hopefully that works this weekend.”

To have home field for this game is huge for the team.

“We chatted about it last night (Thursday) after training and a lot of the guys who have been around the club a lot of years don’t understand that we don’t make playoffs every year and having the home playoff game is extremely rare. We haven’t had one for quite a few years,” he said.

“So it’s good to finish a top of the table and get a home game. But we really need to make sure that we play hard and execute at home so we go on to the cities.”

McKeown said they have a very experienced squad.

“They have a quite a few guys that used to play in first division up in Calgary,” he said.

“So they’re more of veteran side. They got a lot of age on their side. So we have to come out hard and make sure we take away their hope early on in the game”

Whoever wins the game today will advance to the city final on Sept. 10 in Calgary against the either the Hornets or Canucks.

The city champion will play a team from Edmonton in the provincial final in Calgary on Sept. 17.

LRC finished 8-2 on the regular season.

The semi-final game is today at 2 p.m. at Lethbridge Rugby Club.