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Labatt's Cup champions focused on another winning season in premier men's rugby

Great Firsts good to go

Losing is not an option for the Great Firsts.

The premier men’s first 15 are stoked to continue last year’s commanding playoff presence as Labatt’s Cup champions, the fourth provincial title in five years and the fifth since 2010 for the St. Albert Rugby Football Club.

“There is a really big tradition here in St. Albert of success and last year was another notch on the bedpost for that so we want to keep that rolling forward,” said playoff star Joe Casella. “Of course, there is a lot of responsibility to defend it now.”

An interesting format change to the Alberta Cup premier fixtures will also prove challenging for the SARFC firsts. Instead of the interlock Edmonton and Calgary league to determine the north and south playoff pairings for the provincial final, teams will now play a round robin within their rugby unions and the top three in both Edmonton and Calgary qualify for the Alberta Cup fixtures to produce the provincial finalists. It’s also possible the final will not be the traditional Edmonton vs. Calgary showdown.

The first of five seeding matches for SARFC is May 25 against the Lep/Tigers at 1:30 p.m. at Ellerslie Rugby Club.

“We’re probably going to have to be a lot better through the regular season with the new format so that is something we’re really going to have to focus on and do our best to stay on top,” said Casella, a nifty outside-centre with last year’s 8-5 team and eager participant at the first outdoor training session for the SARFC men’s program Tuesday.

“We can’t afford any slip-ups so the big emphasis is getting all the boys fit so we can run teams around for a good 80 minutes,” Casella said. “The big thing for us is organization and making sure we play our structures and that’s what kind of led us to being quite (a) success at the end of last year. We were comfortable keeping the ball in possession and working through a lot of phases and then we had all the where-all to score tries after we held the ball for a long period of time so what’s crucial for us is having that fitness so that we can still think clearly when we’re keeping possession for long periods of time.”

Last year the firsts, still feeling the heat from the disappointing 2017 first-round playoff failure after winning three Labatt’s Cups in a row, trudged into the north semifinals with a .500 record as the No. 2 playoff seed in the Ken Ann Cup playoffs.

However, with the forwards lowering the boom, the firsts proceeded to clobber the Strathcona Druids (5-6) 34-12 at SARFC and then walloped the Nor’Westers (10-2), the defending provincial champions and winners of four in a row against the firsts, 29-7 in the Ken Ann Cup final at Ellerslie before the 42-26 beat-down of the first-place Calgary Rams (13-2) in the Cow Town for provincial honours.

“That was brilliant. We got hot at the right time,” said Casella, a non-forward candidate for the team’s playoff MVP award along with Jake Robinson, the Brad Marchand of scrumhalfs. “The .500 record through the season was probably not our best representation of us and as we showed at the end of the year we're more than capable of playing above that.”

It was the fearless Robinson, the man of the match after the ninth Ken Ann Cup victory in 10 north finals in 11 years, who pointed out to the Gazette matter of factly, “The regular season doesn’t matter. You know that.”

According to Cam Larson, a six-foot-five second row, “Everyone was pulling on the same rope” in the playoffs.

“We had some injuries, we had some guys coming in and out of the lineup, so having everyone back and knowing what was going on from practice to practice and everybody showing up helped a lot,” Larson said. “Everyone really started learning the structures by the end of the year as well and followed them in game play and that made a difference too.

“And honestly, the weather played into our favour a bit with us with our forward pack. At times maybe we're not as skilled (as other packs) but with the weather the way it was it was just us pushing forward and battling with all the snow conditions (against the Druids and Nor’Westers). You could just play a physical hard-driving game and that helped us. It gave us momentum going in that last game where our forwards had a lot of confidence. Our strength has always been our backs I guess at the club for the last few years but the forwards really earned their confidence by the last game from those hard-fought battles.”

The first 15 starting lineup was also the same group for every playoff match.

“We learned a lot about ourselves towards the end of the year in terms of where our strengths lie as well. We’ve got the ability to actually really play a control game as well as obviously cutting loose and scoring tries out wide so hopefully we can carry that forward this year as well,” said Casella, a sleek runner who pulled off some memorable dashes into the try area in clutch situations throughout the playoffs.

As for the upcoming season as defending champions, “We basically have to play the same way we did at the end of last year,” Larson said. “I wouldn’t read too much into the (format) change, we just come to practice every day and work hard and that’s all you can really do.

“It’s kind of a shorter season I guess so we almost have to get up to conditioning that little bit faster and work a little bit harder. I know guys are pushing each other to make sure they're in shape for the beginning of the season,” Larson added. “After all the hard work we put in last year we just have to start it all over again and kind of go back to the basics right off the start, but it's just good to start putting the work in again with the same good group of guys.”

Larson, 30, was one of the many unsung heroes for the firsts as the recipient of the team’s most improved player award.

“Sometimes that award can kind of mean a lot of different things, maybe you weren’t as strong at the start of the season and you got to a certain point later on, but I’m pretty proud that I was able to put in the work and get better throughout the season and a lot of that was just guys helping me out along the way and getting me back into the swing of things to be where you need to be for that style of rugby,” said the high school rugby product of the St. Albert Skyhawks.

Injuries and work commitments limited Larson’s pitch presence over the years but his breakthrough performance last season was a labour of love for the sport.

“It’s all about the friendships you build. You enjoy the out-of-rugby stuff just as much as the rugby itself, but it’s the same thing I used to say about hockey. Sometimes you step off the ice and you’re in pain but you like the pain. You earned that little bit of pain and then you feel like when you have a beer with the boys afterwards you kind of earned it in a strange way. You earned the bruises and you kind of feel proud of them so that’s why I continue to play.”

Casella, 29, embraced the SARFC brand of rugby in his first season as a valuable Welsh import from Cardiff.

“It is quite a different kind of rugby you guys play here compared to back home in Wales because it's obviously in summer and that's a huge thing. It's really quite nice actually not to be soaking wet and freezing cold," Casella said. "As well the emphasis of kind of that ball in play, run it as much as we can in terms of spreading teams around and kind of try and convert as many opportunities as we can was also a lot of fun.

"Obviously, it was really cool to win the championship too."

SCRUM BALLS: The Alberta Women’s Premier fixtures kick off Thursday for SARFC against the visiting Pirates at 7 p.m.

The season-opening division two matches for the men and women in the Edmonton Rugby Union is May 11 against the host Fort McMurray Knights.

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