Abir Shah

Last Sunday, the McGill Redmen rugby team won their home opener against the Concordia Stingers. The game wasn’t pretty, but it ended well with 13 unanswered points for McGill in the last 15 minutes, putting the Redmen ahead at the final whistle 21-13.

Thirteen minutes in, Gideon Balloch converted a penalty kick to put McGill up 3-0. A minute later, the Redmen gained possession of the ball, but fumbled it away. The Stingers took advantage of McGill’s defensive lapse to score an uncontested try and made the conversion for a 7-3 lead. For the next three minutes McGill dominated in rucks, executing their offence well. Second-year Cameron Perrin broke through with McGill’s first try of the game but the Redmen failed to capitalize on the conversion, making the score 8-7 McGill.

McGill was called for an endless array of penalties in the first half, which gave Concordia opportunities to score. When Concordia executed a successful maul, McGill was called for a penalty. The Stingers decided to take a penalty kick and scored to go up 10-8.

 The Redmen’s biggest problems were knock-ons caused by fumbling and missed catches. They had excellent chances to score, but there were instances where nerves got the best of them and they dropped the ball. The Redmen’s line-outs were the best aspect of their game. Not only did they execute their own line-outs well, but they were able to make key steals on Concordia’s.

Tensions mounted at the end of the first half, as the play crossed the line between hard-nosed and chippy. Late in the second half, a Concordia player kicked Redmen hooker Keelan Chapman in the head. After a little tussle both players were sent to the sin bin.

“There’s always been a lot of hot blood between McGill and Concordia and the games are always so close that we expect it to be a rough game,” Perrin said.

After another penalty by McGill, the Stingers again opted to take a penalty kick. They scored and increased the lead by three to 13-8. These little mistakes by McGill gave the Stingers easy opportunities to score. However, the Concordia kicker missed two penalty kicks, allowing McGill to stay in the game.

In the final 15 minutes, McGill turned up the intensity. A nice offensive play created the opportunity for second-year wing Nick Santo to score a try, which tied the game 13-13. McGill dominated the offence for the rest of the contest and Perrin took it to the house again with about four minutes left. The conversions proved difficult because of their placement, and both were unsuccessful but McGill kept their 18-13 lead.

The Redmen widened the gap with a successful penalty kick by rookie centre Quentin Pradere, making the final score 21-13.

Although this wasn’t McGill’s best effort, the win places them firmly in first place in the RSEQ standings.

“I think we got a little nervous at the end of the game and decided to pick up the intensity but we put ourselves into that position with all the dropped passes,” Head Coach Craig Beemer said. “There were a lot of handling errors and it was a sub-par performance by us.”

McGill’s winning streak now stands at five games, including two victories from last year.

Their next home game is against the Sherbrooke Vert-et-Or at 1 p.m. on Oct. 2.