Seeing Red

Concordia’s Men’s Rugby Team Beat Sherbrooke, Set to face Rival McGill in Provincial Final for 4th Straight Year

SportsDavid S. Landsman — Published November 18, 2013 | Updated November 19, 2013 at 2:15am

The Stingers have reached the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec Conference final in each of the last three seasons. Every time, they lost to the McGill Redmen.

Facing their longest rivals in the conference final yet again this Friday, the Stingers are hoping the fourth time’s the charm.

“We’ve been waiting for this all year,” said team captain Joseph Fulginiti. “We’ll be ready to go.

[They’re] our biggest rival and they’ve won the last seven [championships], so it’s extra motivation to get the win next Friday.”

The road back to the RSEQ championship game was mostly an easy one for Concordia. Finishing the regular season in second place with a 6-2 record, a semifinal battle with the Sherbrooke Vert et Or last Sunday was all that stood in the way between the Stingers and this weekend’s provincial finals.

Overcoming rain and a slippery field at Concordia Stadium, the Stingers won 23-13.

The rain didn’t help either squad, but both teams got on the board early.

Fulginiti got the Stingers up first by converting his first kick just over four minutes into the game.

But the Vert et Or soon answered when a great hustle got them down near the end zone. Moments later, Sherbrooke’s Olivier Jobin found a small crack in the Stingers second row and scored a try and the ensuing conversion, putting his team up 7-3 seven minutes into the contest.

From there, the game was essentially a kickers’ duel. Two more kicks saw the Stingers take a 9-7 halftime lead, but a kick by Sherbrooke near the 16-minute mark of the second half put them back ahead by one.

“It’s really tough to get anything started in this kind of weather,” said Fulginiti.

I think if we were able to hold on to the ball more it would have been a lot better.”

But Fulginiti’s boot is all Concordia would need to win, as he would go on to successfully convert three straight kicks to give his side a comfortable 18-10 lead late in the second half.

The Stingers put the nail the coffin in the game’s dying seconds when they bulldozed their way into the try zone for the last score of the day.

“We played with a little bit of control, had some handling errors, but took every point we could,” said Gibson. “Basically, up until the bitter end all the points we got were off of Joey’s boot, which hasn’t let us down all season, and thank God it didn’t let us down today.”

The Stingers will now have a week to prepare for the provincial final, where they’ll face the Redmen for the third time this season. The teams split their two regular season matchups, with McGill winning the first one 35-28 in September and Concordia coming out ahead 19-13 on Oct. 25.

While McGill has had their number in the playoffs the past few seasons, there’s no lack of confidence among the Stingers’ ranks.

“[McGill] has beaten us this season, and we’ve beaten them, obviously we have some things we need to tweak,” said Gibson.

“We just can’t afford to give up that many penalties. If we give that many up, McGill will punish us.

“That’s something we need to work on,” he continued. “We’ve given up too many and allowed other teams to get back into games. Not next week.”

Points are another thing the Stingers have given up a lot this season. The Stingers allowed 151 points in the regular season, fourth-worst in the conference. McGill, meanwhile, gave up just 79 while scoring 179—best in the RSEQ in both categories.

But Gibson is confident his team will be able to shut down the Redmen like they did in October.

“Defensively as of late we’ve been on point,” he said. “It was our gameplan today, and will be next week to not let them beat us around the outside.”

The Stingers will take on the Redmen at Molson Stadium on Nov. 22. Kick-off is at 7 p.m.