In the last game of winter, the Burnaby Lake Rugby Club’s premier men’s side got hot when it counted in for a 40-33 win over the Oak Bay Castaways-Wanderers last week on the Island.
Both teams took turns coddling the lead but it was an impressive rally over the final 15 minutes that saw Burnaby emerge on the winning side, erasing a 33-26 deficit.
Scrumhalf Ruhan Smit started the rollback, recording a try on the heels of a Darren McCrory-led march. A Neil MacLaine convert knotted it 33-33, setting the stage for Jean Koorsten’s game-winning run to the corner. Creating that play were a number of key moves, orchestrated by Siaki Vikilani, Mike O’Toole and Ben McIvor.
That the game had so many turns and a groundswell of offence wasn’t too surprising.
Although Cowichan scored first and built up a 12-5 lead before the game was 30 minutes old, the Burnaby crew pounded away and shake out with a 19-12 advantage at halftime, thanks to tries by Bryce Worden, Taitusi Vikilani and MacLaine, with Geoff Ryan connecting on two converts.
Early in the second half, the Castaways responded and pulled even, but the visitors reclaimed the lead five minutes later on MacLaine’s second of the day, thanks to some key yardage from Tom Cvijanovic, Smit and Worden.
It was Burnaby’s fifth straight win of 2019, keeping them locked into the top spot of the Men’s Premier League at 12-1-0.
Their lone loss came against the UBCOB Ravens, who provide this week’s opposition. The men’s match kicks off at 2:30 p.m. at Burnaby Lake.
In other action last week, Burnaby’s premier reserve squad blitzed its way to a 70-14 triumph over the Wanders, getting three tries each from Matt Chan and Giuseppe Laudisio. Rounding out the offence were Harry Curtin, Chris Dunne, Mike Gough, Jean Koorsten, Sean McKeown and Ruhan Smith.
