Wednesday's Ruck & Maul

Jesse Neilson in support Vs Capilanos.

WOMEN’S ALUMNI DAY

Have heard there will be Alumni a-plenty on hand at the House for this event on Saturday.  Coming from near and far, ladies who have been part of this rapid growth over the past six years, armed with tales from days of yore. Just a brief thumbnail sketch of one such player – Jess Neilson.  Jess, despite a myriad of other skills and a Poly Sci degree in Public Admin, has used her love of rugby to carve a career.  She is currently Head Coach at York University.  Unfortunately, a brilliant playing career had to come to an end due to injury. 

Jess was a true Trailblazer.  When she started with CW at age eight, she was the only girl.  It did not take much for her to convince the boys of her worth and she was soon to be the first selected!  When Jess got to Middle School, she was told she could no longer play on the boy’s team and there was no girl’s team at the time.  She attempted to start a girl’s team however, the numbers were not available, so she petitioned the Lower island Sports Association for her successful re-instatement to the boy’s team.  How about that sports fans?  Jess, no doubt inspired her successors, Sophie DeGoede and Caroline Crossley, and others, forerunners of the club’s now very successful Girl’s Age Grade programs and transition to our two Senior Women’s teams. ‘onya, Jess.

 AROUND THE PARK

CW was the recent purchaser of a new scrum machine; its predecessor being amortized over twenty years did not owe the club anything!  The latest version, another in a long line of prototypes, an invention of the multi-capped, FRF member, Kevin ‘Lunk’ Wirachowski.  Lunk has given much back to the game via his work fine-tuning the machine over many years.  We’d say, “good value” on this one and hopefully, it will produce many “tight-heads” this season.