{"id":3156,"date":"2013-07-17T16:19:03","date_gmt":"2013-07-17T20:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=3156"},"modified":"2013-07-24T17:01:32","modified_gmt":"2013-07-24T21:01:32","slug":"rugby-showdown-as-barbs-take-on-brits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/rugby-showdown-as-barbs-take-on-brits\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby showdown as Barbs take on Brits"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jeff Doner<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Aurora Barbarians U18 had a taste of international play as they welcomed the U18 rugby team from Churcher\u2019s College, Petersfield, United Kingdom for a friendly match on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Both teams braved the stifling heat and headed out to St. Maximilian Kolbe for the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cBesides having a really hot day, we had a good field,\u201d said Tim Brochu, president of Aurora Barbarians rugby. \u201cThe advantage of having these incoming tours is the cultural exposure, but also the different style of play, so the benefit for our guys is seeing any different tactics that they have or a different style.\u201d <\/p>\n

Bill Baker, tour director for Churcher\u2019s, said the match against Aurora was just one stop as part of a Canada\/US tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do a senior tour every two years and it\u2019s very much a developmental tour for our domestic season that starts in September, and we have some tough early [games] so this is about trying to get two different groups playing together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did South Africa two years ago and our head coach\u2026fancied coming and having a look around Canada and the United States. He heard there was some good hard rugby going on over here, which there is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout the game, it became increasingly evident that Churcher\u2019s was kicking the ball a lot and sending the Barbs downfield to tire them out.
\nEventually that strategy began to work as Churcher\u2019s jumped out to an early lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big difference really is a lot of the teams we\u2019ve played in America and Canada are physically much bigger,\u201d he explained. \u201cWhat we\u2019ve tried to do is negate that by hopefully having a better technique and a little more understanding of the game. Today, for example, the tactic was to try and kick the ball over the top, turn their backs and get them running and moving around the field. When you\u2019re tiring the spaces become available.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barbs associate coach Ryan Stickle said Churcher\u2019s brought a well-balanced and organized strategic attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think their players have been playing rugby for a lot longer than our guys have, so they\u2019re a little bit more organized and natural as rugby players. In Canada we\u2019ve got a lot of natural athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, the Barbs succumbed to a relentless attack and lost the match 27 \u2013 5.<\/p>\n

Tom O\u2019Kelly, Churcher\u2019s team captain, was a vocal and motivating force for his team that was banged up from a previous match in Cleveland.
\n\u201cIt went really well today,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had a long day and were really hot, but it was a great effort from the guys in these conditions. It was really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Kelly gave kudos to the Barbs players after the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had some really good runners, especially their full-back; he was a brilliant runner and very tough to tackle,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kieran Joyce, a fly-half on the Barbs, said the Churcher\u2019s plan of attack took them off their game.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanadian rugby is usually a bit more physical, we just lost the ball a lot more \u2013 a lot of turnovers \u2013 they used it when they had it and they liked to kick it past us and have us chase it. They definitely got us a little fatigued. They were down on numbers, but they made us run.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the game, both agreed that the match was beneficial to team development.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a big, long season ahead of us and this is when we can gel as a team and get ready for the real season,\u201d said O\u2019Kelly. \u201cIt\u2019s fun to come here and win as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joyce agreed: \u201cIt\u2019s great to meet these guys and it\u2019s cool to have them over at your house. It\u2019s a social thing as much as it is part of the game.\u201d <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Aurora Barbarians U18 had a taste of international play as they welcomed the U18 rugby team from Churcher\u2019s College, Petersfield, United Kingdom for a friendly match on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/2013-07-17-12.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-OU","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 12:03:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}