Rugby falls to McMaster

On Sunday afternoon, the Wilfrid Laurier University men’s rugby team had high hopes as they faced the McMaster Marauders.

They entered the game 1-1, and were hoping to improve their record against a rugby club of similar strength.

The Golden Hawks did not meet their expectation and fell 35-17 to the Marauders.

Laurier started off strong, leading 5-3 10 minutes into the game. However, the rest of the first half was dominated by McMaster as they scored 22 straight points and went into halftime leading the Hawks 25-5.

The second half saw a stronger showing from the home team, as each club scored two tries.

Head coach Ian McLeod felt as if the team did not live up to their potential against McMaster, until it was too late.

“We’re better than we showed. I think you saw glimpse of that in the second half where we were actually outscoring them,” he said.

Third-year lock, Andrew Thomson, who had two tries for Laurier, noted that the team has room for improvement.

“We feel asleep for 20 minutes. We need to work on rallying, working hard and getting back in [to games],” he said.

Multiple penalties committed by Laurier led to McMaster scoring 11 points against them, mostly off of penalty kicks.

The Hawks were also forced to play a player short after second-year Nathan Roberts was sent off for an unsportsmanlike penalty.

The team’s mindset is something that McLeod has been working on since he arrived to coach the team this year.

He was unimpressed with the team’s showing in the first part of the game, as they were unable to hold themselves together mentally.

“It’s costing us points and in the end it costs us that game. It’s very difficult when we are letting our emotion control us more than we should,” said McLeod.

“Once we learn to control the emotion and the discipline I think you’ll see us play a much more fluid game.”

The Hawks continue their season in London on Saturday Sept. 20 against the Western Mustangs.