Capilano Rugby Club began its 2011 spring campaign yesterday with a season-opening showdown with the Castaway Wanderers at Klahanie Park.

It's the beginning of an interesting time for the storied North Shore club, as it gets to grips with a young squad and a new B.C. Rugby scheduling format brought in to ease entrance of new clubs and help retain those already in.

"Some of the weaker teams may slip down a bit without being relegated, which was the nasty word going around last year," Capilano president Ken Robinson said. "Nobody wants to get relegated. If your club gets knocked out of the premier division you generally lose a lot of your best athletes because they want to play premier. This new system is a bit kinder."

While Capilano is a perennial powerhouse on the pitch, the new rules mean the top clubs have to hit the ground running.

The clubs are divided into pools, and by early March the top four clubs in each pool advance to the eight-team premier league.

The bottom two squads are diverted to a separate division.

"The first four or five games are relatively important, so you have to come out of the gate pretty fast. You can't be wasting time getting ready or take the first couple games lightly. You have to get into it right away or you'll find yourself playing down in the dungeons when the real league takes off in a month's time," Robinson said.

"We've been training for a few weeks and the guys have been in the gym," he said. "It's tough with the January weather, though. But quite a number of them are pretty serious about it."

Among them will be Tom Larisch, the longtime Capilano player who has moved into coaching duties, although he did play a few games with the Caps in the fall season.

"We're a club in transition right now," he said. "We have good numbers but we've very young. We've had a wave of players retire or move away -- more than 20. A lot of those guys were Canada players or high level rep players. But we have a great group of young talent that is developing."

As Carson Graham secondary's rugby coach, Larisch has been close to the North Shore high school rugby programs for years. Some of the current Capilano squad are alumni of Carson's provincial championship team from a few years back, and almost all of the side are familiar faces for Larisch.

"We're basically kids. Right now, it's a tough learning curve for them to play against men on a regular basis, but they're learning valuable lessons quickly and I could see them being quite competitive by the end of the year. Once they gain some confidence and some experience, I think they'll be able to handle anyone. I foresee, long-term, in a year or two this becoming a dynasty if they stick together, plus we get some additions coming back from universities."

Larisch echoed Robinson's comments on the importance of the early games, but said his focus is still on laying down strong foundations.

"We want to be 2-0 or at least 1-1 after these first two weeks to put us in a good position.

"But my only goal is that we play better every week. That's it. In my own plans I have long-term goals for this team, but right now with this team I just want us progressing every week.

"I don't even want to concentrate so much on the result as on that each player does something better every week and closes that gap between the experienced, high rated players on some of the other teams."