Brandon Sun - PRINT EDITION
For the fourth straight year, the Brandon Barbarians are headed to Winnipeg in search of a Rugby Manitoba title.
And after coming up empty in their past three trips, the Barbarians have plenty of motivation to end their drought this afternoon.
“It’s always tough losing a final and losing three in a row is almost unheard of in any sport, really,” said Barbarians coach Jon Fitzpatrick. “So it’s absolutely tough, but our guys are using it in a good way, it is a nice motivating tool, especially playing the U of M this year.”
After posting an 11-4-0 first-place record and edging the Winnipeg Wasps 18-17 in last weekend’s semifinal at John Reilly Field, the Barbarians will battle the two-time defending champion U of M Wombats in today’s Division 1 men’s final.
Fitzpatrick said his team is up to the challenge.
“Absolutely. We’ve got the strongest team that we’ve had in the last six or seven weeks, we’ve got a bunch of guys off injuries and we’re looking good and confident right now,” he said. “We weathered a late injury bug and we had an exciting win last week to kind of build off of, so we’ve got a lot of things going for us right now and we’re pretty excited … It’s time to put your body on the line for the team and we’ve got a long winter (to recover).”
The Barbarians won all three meetings with the Wombats in the regular season, but aren’t putting too much stock into that record when it comes to a one-game playoff matchup.
“Over the summer, teams are rarely at full strength when they come out to see us, so we always side a better side later on,” Fitzpatrick said. “When we played them in our last game, it was quite a close match and they were at full strength that time and we beat them by about four or five points, so that was a good indicator of what they can do and how well they can do it … Obviously it’s nice to have a 3-0 record against them, because everyone does feel a little bit more confident about that, but playoffs are always different. It’s always a different game.”
While they have a number of Division 2 men’s titles to their credit, a first Division 1 championship has so far eluded the Barbarians. Fitzpatrick said the club is determined to finally change all that today.
“I think you can look at it two ways,” he said. “You can let it play on you psychologically or you can embrace it and use that for fuel and we’ve got the right attitude going in right now. We’re hungry, even more so than last year, I think, and the guys are feeding off the fact that we’ve lost those three and we get (the Wombats) again, so we’re excited about that and we’re ready to go.”
» jshewaga@brandonsun.com
Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition September 29, 2012
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For the fourth straight year, the Brandon Barbarians are headed to Winnipeg in search of a Rugby Manitoba title.
And after coming up empty in their past three trips, the Barbarians have plenty of motivation to end their drought this afternoon.
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For the fourth straight year, the Brandon Barbarians are headed to Winnipeg in search of a Rugby Manitoba title.
And after coming up empty in their past three trips, the Barbarians have plenty of motivation to end their drought this afternoon.
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