I had a chance to talk to Ralph McRae, one of the driving forces behind the Vancouver Highlanders, and I’ll share my thoughts from the conversation. I’m sure if I get anything wrong, Ralph or Curry will let me know.
Canada went ahead 26-6 at the half behind a dominant scrum. They pushed the lead to 38-9 after 60 minutes before the Highlanders kicked into gear for the final 20 minutes, scoring two tries for a final 38-23 scoreline.
It was running, attacking rugby at its finest as the Highlanders backline players accounted for 10 of the 11 tries. It was no secret early on that the game plan was to spread the ball wide and the Highlanders did so successfully with outside centre Melani Nanai providing the key link to wingers Nico Leonard and D’Shawn Bowen. Between the three players they accounted for 7 tries. Mike Moloney was 11 for 11 on conversions.
The Vancouver Highlanders defeated the German National Team 30-26 at the Burnaby Lake rugby club with an estimated 400 people in attendance.
It was everything the Highlanders would have wanted from their opening weekend, a double header win over Canada Selects (44-33) and Barbados (44-12). They reported the attendance at 1,023 and the YouTube stream shows 2,160 views, so you could say it reached over 3,000 people. It’s a positive start.
The Highlanders have walked back their plan to charge $40 plus fees ($46.39) for their opening games this Friday at Burnaby, (see previous article). They now are offering free admission, you can even “buy” online for $0 from their website.
The Vancouver Highlanders have opened ticket sales for their first event on June 28th. They’ll play the Canada Selects at 4:30 and Barbados at 7pm. Tickets for adults are $40 ($46.39 with fees), $35 ($41.12 with fees) for Military and First Responders and free for children 12 and under.
The Highlanders have added four more Reserve players since our last update. The quality of the Reserve players announced is increasing and the gap between 1st XV and Reserve is closing. Two of the recent Reserve announcements are top level players in the BC Premier, Nick Blain fullback from the championship UBCOB Ravens team and Brian Ndirangu second row from Westshore, both of these players would be interchangeable with their counterparts on the 1st XV. The two other players are Irish and we’re not familiar with their level of play but likely quite handy. Conall Henchy is a hooker from Trinity College, and Andrew Sherlock is a scrum-half from Galwegians.
The Highlanders have added 3 more Reserve players to their roster since our last update: Tom Richardson, a loose forward from the James Bay Premier side; Cole Kelly a tighthead prop from Trinity College who was on Canada’s U20 team last year; Demetri Patterson an outside back from UBC.
The Vancouver Highlanders have added Karl Hunger to their roster. Hunger had been signed by Dallas Jackals of the MLR but didn’t get any playing time this season, subsequently he’s returned to Canada and signed with the Highlanders. The Highlanders also announced the signing of Relmu Wilson-Valdes of UBC.