Neveyah Fox of the F.P. Walshe Flyers is wrapped up by a Matthew Halton Hawk with teammates Aby McClung and Lux Prince in the background
ANDREW WALMSLEY, GAZETTE CONTRIBUTOR
The F.P. Walshe Flyers girls’ rugby team played their first home 15-aside game since 2019 on Wednesday against the Matthew Halton Hawks from Pincher Creek.
COVID-19 shut down high school rugby for two seasons and numbers issues since have limited the Flyers to playing the seven-aside variation.
A strong growth in numbers from Grade 8-10 players has allowed the Flyers to field a junior varsity 15s team to play in the Southern Alberta High School Rugby League this season.
The game started tentatively for the Flyers. The Hawks pressured for the first five minutes, but the Flyers defense held strong.
At the seven-minute mark Addy Nelson found space along the sideline and sprinted to the try line. Her convert gave the Flyers a 7-0 lead.
Three minutes later Nelson took a pass from Grade 8 scrum half Rayne Bumactao and side-stepped her way into the try zone, making the score 12-0.
After full scale substitutions at the break, Katherina Stinsky scored the first and second tries of her rugby career. Both involved her running through multiple would-be tacklers before outsprinting the Hawks defenders to the goal line. The tries effectively put the game out of reach as the Flyers now led 22- 0.
The Flyers added two more tries in the second frame to lead 34-0 heading into the final frame.
Reagan Gurney made a slick run through traffic to score and then slotted the conversion, followed by a heads-up play from Addy Van Herk crashing over the try line.
The final frame saw Addy Nelson score her third try of the game and add the convert. The final score ended up 41-0 in favour of the Flyers.
