The season is on the line this Saturday for the Capilano Rugby Club’s premier men’s team.
The Caps will have one simple goal when they host the UBC Thunderbirds in the final game of the CDI Premier League regular season: win and you’re in. Capilano currently sits in third place in the league and a win Saturday would keep them there, earning a berth in the four-team playoffs. With a loss, however, Capilano could drop all the way to fifth — and out of the playoffs — if fourth-place Burnaby Lake and fifth-place James Bay win their Saturday afternoon games.
“It’s a huge weekend,” said Capilano head coach Tom Larisch. “There’s even a possibility if we lose and one of the other teams loses we’re still in, but we want to take care of business and go in winning.”
It won’t, however, be an easy task. While Burnaby Lake and James Bay will be taking on, respectively, Castaway Wanderers and Vancouver Rowing Club, the two teams at the bottom of the standings, Capilano will be clashing with the first-place Thunderbirds.
It’s a team that is full of familiar faces as a handful of UBC players are North Shore grads and the team is led by North Shore connections in coaches Ramses Langston and Curry Hitchborn as well as strength coach Joe McCullum, a.k.a. Big Joe. The T-Birds don’t have a great record of success playing in the elite provincial men’s league in recent years but this season they’ve raced to the top of the standings.
“Curry and Ramses took over at UBC a couple of years ago and have done a great job of recruiting new talent and working with the alumni to rebuild the program,” said Larisch. “I really think it’s awesome what Ramses, Curry and Big Joe have done with the UBC program. It’s great for rugby and they deserve a lot of credit for it.”
The two teams met twice before earlier in this campaign with Capilano scoring a 24-7 win in the pre-season Mainland Cup tournament in September and the T-Birds returning the favour with a 23-17 win in November.
“The first time we beat them we sort of took it to them in the forwards,” said Larisch. “It’s always hard to beat a good team twice and I think the second time they made some adjustments and took care of business. Now we’ve got the rubber match.”
The game plan this time will be to try to dominate the front lines again, but it won’t be that simple, said Larisch.
“Just as men you’d hope that you could at least assert yourself in the forwards. We have some age and experience on some of these guys. But the UBC players are not boys, they’re big, strong fit young men. . . . It’s not like we’re going to be able to push them around physically, we’re just hoping a little bit of our experience and sort-of man-strength will come into play there. But we can’t just win in the forwards. We have to play smart tactically and mix it up so we’re not one dimensional.”
Through 13 games Capilano has posted an 8-5 record with six bonus points. The point tally may have been higher if not for a rash of injuries.
“It’s the same for many clubs, but we’ve had a phenomenal number of injuries,” said Larisch. “We’ve had 21 players out recently for a variety of reasons. Some of those players are just coming back to health and others are out for the rest of the year. It’s just one of those years — when it rains it pours. We’ve just got to deal with it, no excuses and try to get the job done. It’s given an opportunity to a lot of guys to move up and play at a higher level. Some have reacted very well and others are learning what the next level is all about. We’ll see how it goes.”
One player who is healthy and returning to the lineup Saturday following a suspension is captain Glen McKinnon, who should be a re-assuring presence in a high-pressure game.
“Just to have Glen back, being our long-time captain and one of the best players in the league, is a big difference for this game,” said Larisch.
Larisch is expecting a big crowd for Saturday’s contest, which will be Capilano’s final home game of the season unless they make the final and are chosen as the host team.
“It’s going to be a great game,” he said. “It’s always awesome to be down at the club this time of year with the nice weather. It’s basically a playoff rugby game. It’ll be a really nice opportunity for fans to get their rugby fix this weekend.”
As for Capilano, the current standings are in their favour while the matchups heading into Saturday’s season finales are not. None of that should matter, however, once the ball starts flying.
“The league is very even this year,” said Larisch. “You never know what could happen.”
Kickoff Saturday is scheduled for 2:45 p.m. at Klahanie Park.
