Rugby falls in semis

OUA Champions will not defend title, look to defeat Brock for bronze

The Queen’s men’s rugby team lost their Saturday semifinal matchup with the McMaster Marauders by a score of 34-20 in Hamilton. The loss officially ended the Gaels’ chances of defending their OUA championship. The first half proved to be evenly matched as Queen’s opened the scoring with a David Worsley drop goal.

Queen’s extended their lead further as winger Dan Moor added a penalty goal, giving the Gaels a six point lead early in the match. Queen’s kept applying plenty of pressure, but the Marauders took advantage of their opportunities, breaking through for three tries before the end of the half.

Queen’s responded as eight man Myles Dingwall picked up a loose ball after a ruck, pushing the score to 19-13 heading into the second half.

Lock Pete Wilson said the team partially executed their game plan.

“Having played Mac before we knew what we wanted to do in terms of strategy and I think we did that in the first half.”

The second half saw the Gaels come as close as two points to McMaster after a try from flanker Shane Baddeley. But, the Marauders responded with a strong all-around effort, adding two tries while keeping Queen’s off the board for the rest of the stanza. The 14-point difference was not truly indicative of the play, as McMaster was simply more opportunistic than the Gaels, making them pay for what seemed like every lapse in defence.

“Despite the loss, I think it was our best effort of the season,” Wilson said. “Obviously we didn’t get the result we wanted but we were happy with our effort. I think we showed a lot of class in the way we played.”

He said the game came down to execution and capitalizing on mistakes.

“We went in prepared and with a lot of intensity,” he said. “They were very good at jumping on our open play and they counter-attacked very well. The bottom line was that they were more successful at capitalizing on our turnovers.”

While the Gaels will miss out on the OUA crown, they have an opportunity to wrap up third place Sunday against the Brock Badgers. The game will take place in Markham on Fletcher’s Field, followed by the final between Western and McMaster. In the Gaels only meeting with Brock this season Queen’s squeaked out a 16-15 victory as Worsley hit a penalty goal with no time remaining.

“The last time we played it was very close,” said Wilson. “We need to play a full 80 minutes. Brock’s a good disciplined team but if we come out with the same intensity as last week, it will be a good result”.

The Gaels will face the Brock Badgers this Saturday in Markham for the OUA bronze medal game.

All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Skip to content