Influx rejuvenates rugby program

The Brandon Barbarians men’s team has an excellent problem this summer.

Coach Bryce Colquhoun said the club, which has had seasons where they scrambled to put a hungry 15 on the pitch, has an abundance of players this year.

“The last couple of years we were losing a bunch of numbers, especially with our backs,” Colquhoun said on Saturday after their win over the Wasps. “This year, even just within the last two weeks, we’ve had five more people join up. Right now in our active group chat, I think we’ve got nearly 40 guys who are in or out for different matches.

“Today we had 30 ready to play. It’s been incredible to see this kind of growth.”

Some guys have decided not to play this year but are instead coming out to practice in the hope of developing their game. For a club that’s had a dreadful time even getting a dozen guys out to practice in recent years, this is a Wizard of Oz “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore” moment.

“We’re actually able to get out 18 to 22 and some practices we’ve had 25 guys,” Colquhoun said. “This is beautiful for the sport, beautiful to see it grow. It’s been awesome.”

Colquhoun said the Barbs have a great mix of age and youth, but he’s been especially impressed with the youngsters, who have made a quick impact.

“They’re just beasts,” Colquhoun said. “In their first time on the field, they were making huge sticks. I especially have to give some credit to Zach Malowski and Devyi Alvarenga, those two came out here and their first minutes on the pitch, they were monsters.

“I can’t think of a better word. It’s just so incredible to see the talent that’s been coming up.”

The Barbs sit at 5-2 this season.

They beat the Wasps 56-5 on May 23, the Wombats-2 20-0 on June 6, the Wanderers 70-10 on June 13, 22-20 over Wombats-1 on July 4 and 52-12 over the Wasps on Saturday in a game that seems to have been scored a little differently by everyone who was keeping track.

“In the wins, it’s definitely been the story of our defence getting way better,” Colquhoun said. “That 100-plus point blowout by the Assassins really was a good mental reset. When we were at practice at the start of the season, we were going over ‘This is where we go, this is our flow, this is our system,’ and soon as that happened it was ‘Defence, defence, defence” and we’ve been on the ball.

“We’re trying to run it as much as we can in practice and the difference that I’ve seen is that even the guys who are coming in and have only played one or two years, which I think is all of our backs except for two or three guys, they’re moving together and it’s beautiful.

“They understand the system and they’re flowing and they’re making tackles. They’re running into teams who have played forever and they know what to do. That alone has been the biggest key to our success.”

The Barbarians have taken two tough losses, including the aforementioned 104-15 blowout to the Assassins-1 on May 30 and a 50-15 decision to Assassins-2 on June 20. Brandon was without some key contributors in both games, but Colquhoun added it’s also simply running into great teams.

“It’s a little bit of both,” Colquhoun said. “The 100-point blowout, they will probably end our pre-season in first place. They’ve had a great season so far, and when we met them, it was the perfect storm of they were on the up and we were on the down. We didn’t have our guys out and the second time we played them, even though it was their Division 2 team, it was still a lot of their premiership guys.

“The second time we played them we kept them to 50-something points, which as a rugby coach I should look at think that is still way too many points to give up, but in two weeks time that’s eight less tries that they got.

“When we played them the second time, they weren’t scoring it on the wing like they were in the first match, they actually had to fight for some of those tries. That’s what we need.

“If we’re not going to give the guys a fight on their offence, then we can’t expect to win. But when we’ve been playing good on defence, it’s ben a huge indicator of how the game is going to turn out.”

Offensively, it’s been the forward group that has led the Barbarians in recent years. When they have their big guys going — including Tyler Colquhoun, Adam Kowalchuk, Richard Pierreroy, Randy Cooke, James Huxtable, Josh Koop and James Reid — it’s a physical attack.

“We’ve been a forward-heavy team,” Colquhoun said. “Our average years of experience with our backs are two across the board but that means in three years, I’m hoping our backs can be at the point where across the board we have parity. We’re almost there. We are so close.”

On Saturday, some young Barbs joined the short-staffed Wasps to play against their own teammates. While it might be awkward in a way, Colquhoun was thrilled.

“It’s nice because we have a great relationship with the Wasps,” Colquhoun said. “… We all just want to see people play, we all want to see games go on. The four guys I was able to give them for today were guys who are either really new or really technical but they’re competing against guys who have been our starters for 10 years.

“Instead of me getting them in for the last 25 or 30 minutes of a match, it was ‘Hey, go play 80 with them.’ It’s beautiful because they got as much game time today as they might in three or four matches, depending on how the games go.”

Saturday was so hot the teams agreed to let go players go in and out: Usually, when a player leaves, they’re done. That meant everybody saw lots of time on the field.

Once again, the defence caught the eye of Colquhoun.

“Offence is always going to come because we have some amazing individual talents,” Colquhoun said. “The way our defence is moving together, again because it’s been our focus for a while now, has been improving so much week after week. Seeing where the guys are now is unbelievable. The score today doesn’t show how good a team the Wasps had.

“They had some crazy good runners but we were making sticks, we were making sure they weren’t getting out wide when we needed to and that’s beautiful because we haven’t always had that.”

The league is currently near the end of its seeding round, where everybody plays everyone else to see where they fit. The teams will be reseeded after the first round ends, with the Barbarians finishing up against the Dauphin Mavericks on July 25 at 1:30 p.m.

Right now, three Winnipeg teams have two sides, the Assassins, Wombats and Wasps. Their second teams will automatically go to Division 2.

The other four teams were originally Brandon, Dauphin, the Winnipeg Wanderers and Steinbach Warriors, but the latter dropped out, leaving nine senior men’s teams.

In all likelihood, that means six teams will play in Division 1.

“I understand because of the lack of teams, but it does hurt,” Colquhoun said. “Today we played an amazing game against a Div 1 side, but next time we go to Winnipeg, if we go back to having 16 guys, it’s such a difference from day to day and week to week, but we are getting better at staying consistent.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com