U14 Irish Start Season with a Win

The U14 Markham Irish Canadians travelled north this Saturday May 28th to play against the always big and strong Barrie Rugby Club. Unfortunately both teams were hampered with issues that ended with only 11 players per team able to take the field. This is rugby and we came to play and Barrie the same so play we did.

We played 2 x 30 min halves with 11 players a side on a beautifully kept Jim Hamilton Field in the Barrie Sports Complex. It was hot and humid and the temperature was hovering around 30 C. Both teams had a mix of players that had played U14 before, those that had played U12 and a few that had never played the game before.

One Markham player Sahan had never played before and confided in Assistant Coach Gareth prior to the kick off - "I'm really scared"... then the action pushed that thought from his mind and he played incredibly well. Neither coach could tell he had never played before. Afterwards he told everyone that the game was "AWESOME!"

It as a see saw game for the first half with Barrie leading by a conversion at half time. But being the bigger team, the heat and the lack of players really sapped their strength and the speed of the Irish was brought to bear and the game ended with a 85-29 victory for Markham. Ben Veitch, David Horner, and Eli Gosher scored 3 tries each. Josh Henneberry ran in 2 and Ethan Callaway scored 1. Rhys Patterson converted 9 of 10 attempts and Ethan Callaway 1 of 3.

The MICRC team chose Katie from the Barrie team as their Player of the Match. She was a ferocious tackler and hard runner and was a unanimous selection. Rhys Patterson collected the Player of the Match honours from the Barrie team.

Great game, great day and a great and classy club in Barrie.

What a great start to the season.