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Brandon Barbarians Rugby Football Club

Rugby Manitoba Senior Men Division One

Aug 29, 2009

Game Played at Reilly Field, Canada Games Rugby Park, Brandon

Brandon Barbarians 17  UofM Wombats 41

Nice day for a rugby game. Good day for Wombats’ fans.

Kind of a disappointing day for Barbs’ fans.

Aaron Kaluzniak made two tries while Andrew Haliday scored one.

Scott McMullan made one conversion.

Well, although today's match was the deciding contest between the two clubs contending for a Second Place finish in the Division-1 standings - it wasn't much of a contest.

Our apologies to the UM squad.

And I'll certainly give 'full marks' to UM for the 41-17 score-line... Through the opening stages of the match, it was quite evident that the UM boys were prepared for today's encounter - and they played a very committed 80 minutes of rugby.

As for ourselves, our general level of play was certainly a disappointment - especially considering the importance of today's match.... And after last week's 30-8 loss to the Wasps, all of our guys knew it was important to produce a better effort today - and respond to last week's loss with a positive performance... As well, we also knew that a Second Place finish was still within our reach.

When a team concedes 7 Tries in a match, it's somewhat natural to start searching for 'answers' and 'solutions' - or searching for glaring 'problems' in our game.... However, while watching today's match - it quickly became obvious that - the most significant problem for us, was that we were not 'mentally ready' for today's challenge.

I know that our guys were feeling very positive before the match began - and I thought their focus and concentration during the warm-up was good.... But following the opening kick-off, it quickly became evident that we weren't really ready.    

To put it another way..... The UM scored 3 of their Trys within the first 17 minutes of the match..... They were ready for the challenge. We weren't.

Our guys have been playing great rugby over the past few months - and the collective attitude within the squad has been tremendous. There's certainly no need for us to feel discouraged..... However, today was certainly an 'off' day for us.

In any event, while we can't ignore today's performance - we can't dwell on it either, too much.... And we have some time to re-focus, before our final league match on September 12th. versus the Winnipeg Highlanders.

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