You might expect the Concordia women’s rugby team to be the favorites going into this season seeing as the Stingers won the Quebec conference and went all the way to the gold medal game at the national championship before falling to the St. Francis Xavier X-Women in overtime. But head coach Graeme McGravie still sees his team as the underdog.
>“I’m not sure if you can be underdogs after the season we had in 2010,” he said when discussing his team’s biggest threat this season. “But the Laval Rouge et Or are bringing back a very experienced group as well and they have a lot of veterans and fifth-year players that aren’t happy that we’ve beaten them three of the last four years.”
Concordia, on paper, is bringing back 13 of 15 starters from a year ago. But injuries from the preseason will force some untested players into key roles. The team had an up-and-down preseason tour in Ontario with a 49-12 loss to the Ontario favorite Waterloo Warriors sandwiched in between wins against the Queen’s Gaels and Western Mustangs.
“A lot of the returning players are where we expect them to be,” McGravie said. “The younger players had trouble against Waterloo. It’s good to have something to compare yourself to but that game wasn’t just a loss, we were embarrassed and the way we came back against a good Western team said it all. We’re going to use that loss going forward.”
Among the veterans coming back to the team are all-Canadian centre Jackie Tittley, No. 8 Hughanna Gaw and lock Claire Hortop who attended a summer camp with the national team. McGravie also expects to see more strong play from sophomore flanker Cara Stuckey.
“She had a great rookie year last year,” he said. “We need her to step up and fill some shoes and step up for some players that we lost to injury.”
There aren’t many spots for rookies to step in but Concordia is expecting contributions from prop Erika Ikonomopoulos, winger Tracy Silva, who comes from the Quebec provincial program, and winger Laura Pollice. McGravie says that if they can step up, the team will be fine.
McGravie says that there is still unfinished business for his team.
“We have the feeling that we didn’t get the job done,” he said of the team’s silver medal performance at nationals. “The goal was to get to the championship and win, and we came up short. We have a lot of athletes in their last year and the sense of urgency is still there. We have no sense of accomplishment. We know we have to go out there and earn it.”
The Stingers kick off their season today against the Laval Rouge et Or in a rematch of the Quebec final. The game will start at 4 p.m. at Concordia stadium.
