2011/2012 – Inaugural Season
The modern day University of Saskatchewan Rugby team was founded in 2012. There was only a Men’s team at this time. It was a group of rugby players, led by coach Brennan Marcoux, that were also students. No cuts were made, as there were only 12 players, and the team practiced only a few times before heading to the National University 7’s Championships held in British Columbia.
It was a young bunch that had never played 7’s before. Their only goal was to do better than their rivals, the University of Regina, who was also participating in the National tournament for the first time.
Both U of S and U of R were in the bottom bracket for playoffs, after losing all of their games. The final playoff game was for the ‘toilet bowl’, which decided who was going to be in last place. This was the deciding play. U of S in the blue, U of R in the green.
2012/2013 – Golden year
The second year was much better than the first. Most of the team was the same from the year before, but a few key pieces were added. They had experience playing 7’s, spent more time practicing, and cuts were made for the National tournament (meaning the club was getting bigger!).
They won a good number of games at Nationals and finished in the middle bracket, only a couple points away from the top bracket. This was a team of very talented rugby players!
2013/2014 – Whoops!
The team couldn’t get together in time this year to go to Nationals. Many players from the year before were not available and a decision was made to skip a year.
2014/2015 – Rebuild
With a year break and many players from the past having graduated at this point, it was definitely a year for rebuilding. New talent was emerging and the few veterans left were teaching this new batch how 7’s worked.
More players than ever were on the team and there were at least twice as many practices as ever. However, they had a tough time at Nationals, losing by 90+ points in one of their games. It was a humbling experience, but it was to be expected. Let’s not do this again!
2015/2016 – Expanding!
It was attempted in years past, but this was the first year a Women’s team was successfully created alongside the Men. Long-time captain, Mike Sheinin, had graduated and joined Brennan Marcoux in coaching the team.
There were more tournaments, including the first ever U of S home tournament. There were also over 40 players registered. There was huge potential for this team.
Unfortunately, the Men’s side didn’t perform well at Nationals. They lost to teams they shouldn’t have and were overall disappointed in their performance. The Women, however, put on a great showing. One of their most talented players, Kelcey Miller was among the leading scorers of the whole tournament!
In their final playoff game, they defeated the U of R Women’s team in the lower bracket to end on a high note.
This was the start of a new beginning for the team.
2016/2017 – Core group developing
Coming off a great season, many new players joined the team. Among these new players were a talented group of young men and women who would become the core of the team in the years to come. They didn’t know it yet (and still don’t), but they were a part of something special.
They would win most of their games in competitive tournaments before Nationals. They practiced hard. They became good friends off the field. They worked to sustain a solid foundation for years to come. This was exciting to see.
At Nationals, the Women fell short this time and the Men put on a good showing. The chemistry was growing with everyone on the team and the future was bright. Most players were early in their school career and the team vowed to work even harder the next year.
As the newly appointed captain of the Men’s team, Tom Stubbs, put it, “DF!”
2017/2018 – Focus, hard work, and results
Building on the year previously, the teams met at the beginning of the year and set out goals for themselves. It was apparent that both teams had a chance to do the best they’ve ever done.
Again, the team grew in numbers. More experienced players joined and more brand new players to rugby joined than ever before. The core group led the way on and off the field.
Unfortunately, the National University 7’s Championships didn’t happen. Instead, UBC held a tournament. The team entered with the same mindset of a National tournament.
The Women had a great tournament overall, but fell short in most of their games.
The Men came out of the tournament positive in points, something they’ve never been close to accomplishing in previous years. Most games against the B.C. teams were within 5 points and teams from Ontario were easy competition.
This was the first team that would have hands down defeated the original team from the 2012/2013 season. It wasn’t just a team of talented rugby players. They were fit, they were unified, they were focused, they knew how to play 7’s rugby, and they were all friends off the field. With most of the key pieces staying for the next year, the players knew they could accomplish greatness if they kept at it.
2018/2019 – G.O.A.T?
Coming off the best season ever, this year should one for the books!
This season definitely felt different. There was a quiet confidence throughout the year. The core group had worked hard to get to this point. This was our shot.
To start off the season with something new, U of S Rugby played an exhibition 15’s game against the University of Regina. The U of R had participated in a 15’s league in the year previous and this was meant to be a sort of trial game to see if U of S could join the league officially next year.
U of S won 46 – 0. With long time player, Connor Smyth, scoring U of S Rugby’s first ever 15’s try!
With that over with, both Men and Women looked ahead to the 7’s season. Early in the year, the Women went to their first ever tournament without the Men and had a 2-1 record. The Women played some of the best rugby they’ve ever played in a wet, muddy, Winnipeg field. “The Schecks” ran circles around everyone for non-stop try’s and some huge tackles were made by Shae Dixon. No showers at the fields made for an interesting trip home too!
News outlets were starting to take more notice in the team:
https://thesheaf.com/2018/10/15/knock-on-this-u-of-s-rugby-club-scrums-for-status/
https://thesheaf.com/2019/02/05/u-of-s-rugby-moose-jaw-tournament/
At Nationals, history was made. To cut to the chase, U of S didn’t end up ‘winning’ Nationals, but they did come back winners in every sense of the word.
The Women’s team finished 11th out of 16 teams. It took a couple games for us to catch our stride, but a huge game against Humber gave us our first win at Nationals since defeating Regina in 2016. A try-saving tackle from Kristine Lovatt was the highlight of that game, which allowed us to hang on to a 3-point victory. In the lower bracket of playoffs, the Women came out firing with a 35-0 victory over St. Lawrence College. Our final game was against Western, who has always had a very strong program. The women outplayed Western for most of the game, but a very small number of minor mistakes were capitalized on by Western and we narrowly lost by 2 points after scoring a try on the last play. It was heartbreaking, as the women played such amazing rugby. The team will definitely take away the fact that we can compete with any team at this level and one or more bounces going our way could have us near the top!
The Men’s team finished 7th in the country. However, the scoreboard didn’t quite capture the success we had at the tournament. After the first day of pool play, the Men made it to the top bracket of playoffs. Our first playoff game was set against one of the tournament favourites, Concordia. The game against Concordia was some of the best rugby anybody has ever seen this team play. We controlled the game for 90% of the time; retaining possession, making tackles, running good lines, and no bad offloads. However, just as the Women, the Men also made a small number of key mistakes and Concordia capitalized on every single one of them. The Men lost 19-12 that game. Concordia went off to win the whole tournament, with their final game being a score of 34-0 against Bishop’s. After our game against Concordia, we were the talk of the tournament. Being an unfunded program, with no University Athletics support, it was amazing how close we were to winning the whole thing. Players are being scouted by team Canada, coaches from other teams were congratulating our coaches and players, and the crowd was always cheering for us. Our final game was another close loss to Quebec Selects. However, it was a similar story of controlling the game and outplaying our opponent, but too many momentary lapses costing tries.
The U of S Rugby Team won Nationals.
No other program grew or gained as much respect as we did this year. No other program was talked about more. No other program could believe that we were unfunded. No other program could match our excitement and support when watching our other team play (i.e., Men watching Women). Finally, no other program represented their University as well as we represented the University of Saskatchewan.
G.O.A.T. — it’ll be hard to top this one
News article from after Nationals:
https://thesheaf.com/2019/04/01/u-of-s-rugby-club-has-their-best-showing-yet-at-nationals/
2019/2020 – 15’s and losing a warrior
Due to the outstanding showing in the exhibition 15’s game the previous year, U of S Rugby entered the Canwest University Men’s Rugby Conference (later named Prairies University Men’s Rugby Championship). The first regular season game was against the powerhouse University of Calgary on a day with cold wind and snow in Regina.
To the rest of the league’s disbelief, U of S came out on top 15-0! This was a huge accomplishment and helped the team start the year off right. Defeating Mount Royal University 52 – 24 the next week and narrowly losing to University of British Columbia Okanogan 24-17 the next day.
Unfortunately, during those games, the heart of U of S Rugby, Tom Stubbs, got a season/career ending injury. The injury that day actually wasn’t too severe, but the impact it had on Tom was large due to the near-death experience he suffered in Zimbabwe during the summer.
News article about Tom’s miraculous come-back and injury:
With their on-field leader now on the sidelines, playoffs began. A rematch against Calgary on another cold snowy day proved too much for the team without Tom. U of S lost 21-3, but they were still playing for Bronze the next day against rival U of R. Fortunately this time, the team played strong and won 22-7 securing Bronze in their first full 15’s season.
Due to the strong showing throughout the 15’s season, coaches Brennan Marcoux and Mike Sheinin won Coach(es) of the Year, Josh Penner won Rookie of the Year, and Freddie Hemingway was nominated for League MVP.
More local news coverage after getting Bronze:
With 15’s now done, sights were set on another great 7’s season.
There was a good number of new Women joining the team and the Men had plenty of interest to send two strong teams to tournaments. However, the season felt a little strange and by the end, the whole world felt very strange.
Unfortunately, the Women’s team didn’t have many opportunities to play in tournaments before Nationals and that hurt the team’s chemistry with all of the new players. For the Men, it seemed like it should have been another good year with mostly core players still around, but they couldn’t pull things together during Nationals.
In the end, as the world was shutting down… Nationals seemed like the very last ‘normal’ thing to happen. Even though it was great to send two Men’s teams to B.C. for high level competition, the Women’s and Men’s teams left feeling like they should have done better.
With the uncertainty of the Pandemic, it’s looking like a major rebuild will need to be done whenever rugby is allowed to be played again.
2020/2021 – Pandemic
Nobody wins this year. Season was called off during COVID-19.
2021/2022 – Starting to open up
Things are slowly starting to open up, with the Men’s 15’s season starting in September. Only time will tell what this year will look like as all teams look to rebuild and get back into the game of rugby after more than a year off.
