It was a day of disappointments for Capilano Rugby Club's two premier sides Feb. 19, with both the men and women falling to the visiting Burnaby Lake sides.

The sun shone brightly on Klahanie Park throughout the day and both teams observed a moment of silence to honour referees Jan Curnow and Richard Evans, who recently passed away.

The women's season-opening game started well enough, with the always-dangerous Andrea Burke connecting well with an early penalty kick. But Burnaby's running game soon started to find holes in the Capilano defence, and landed three unanswered tries with two conversions. The teams retired for the break with Burnaby holding a 17-3 lead.

Things didn't improve for the home side in the second half, with Burnaby bringing in two more tries, with time to place the ball centrally and set up the conversions. Capilano produced a late try courtesy of Andrea Burke, but the game was well out of reach and the whistle ended the match 31-8 for the Burnaby Lake Mermaids.

"Burnaby women have a number of Canadian players; we only have one left," observed Capilano president Ken Robinson. "We did well to stay with them early in the game, but were unable to hold them off in the second half."

It hasn't all been bad news for the Capilano women, however. Three of the club's products, Mandy Marchak, Darcy Patterson and Andrea Burke, recently returned from a triumphant campaign with Team Canada at the USA Sevens Invitational event in Las Vegas. Marchak, the side's captain, was named tournament MVP, and also delivered one of the three Canadian tries that sank the Netherlands in the final 17-12.

"This was an incredible week for Canada's women's program," Marchak said in a Rugby Canada release. "It wasn't just us; people need to know that there were close to 50 girls behind, who worked just as hard this week and improved just as much. I'm so proud of everyone here!"

Back at Klahanie Park, Capilano's premier men were looking to hold onto their fourth place position in Pool B, which would mean their season would continue in the premier tier.

The Burnaby Lake visitor, accompanied by a vocal cheering section, opened the scoring with a penalty from Josh Rolls, who was warming up for a very successful afternoon.

Capilano's Kanye Tapiki replied with two well struck penalties of his own to give the home side its first, brief lead.

Despite having a man sent off, Burnaby got rolling when Colin Mackensie deked smartly in front of the goal line to elude the Cap defence and bring in the game's first try. Josh Rolls scored his first try with a more brute-force approach, and Joe Dolesau found yet another way through, striding forward all alone after outpacing the North Vancouverites. Rolls' boot converted all three.

Tapiki stayed consistent with another penalty kick, but the try-less Caps went into the break trailing 24-9.

Rolls continued to torment the Capilano defence in the second half, catching them wrong-footed with an interception and coasting in for an easy try and yet another conversion. He also added insult to injury with a successful penalty.

Capilano put away another penalty of their own, but Rolls once again robbed the Caps of the ball and made them pay with his third try of the afternoon.

Craig McLaren made a determined push for Capilano and ground out their first try of the game, followed by Shane Bates, who got on the end of a crisp passing play for their second.

Burnaby Lake lost another man after some rough stuff near the end of the game, but it wasn't enough to let Capilano salvage the game, which ended 39-29 for the visitors.

The premier men's future hangs in the balance as they visit the Cowichan Piggies this Saturday.

In the other games played that day, Burnaby won the third division men's game, but Capilano's Division 1 team improved to 3-0 with a 25-15 win.

balldritt@nsnews.com