Super Saturday Provincial championship finals set to kickoff at Maple Grove Park
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The stakes are vastly different, but Courtney Maines can draw parallels between her rugby team and the one playing for a world championship in Twickenham, England, on Saturday.
After the Canadian women’s national rugby team tries to pull off what many thought was the unthinkable when it faces world No. 1 England in the Women’s Rugby World Cup final (10 a.m. CT), Maines and the Brumbies will attempt to pull off a shocker of their own at the Manitoba Provincial Rugby Championships.
The Brumbies haven’t won a women’s 15s premier title in their 16-year history — and haven’t won a provincial championship since its first season in Division 2 — but will have their best opportunity this weekend against the five-time reigning champion Assassins at Maple Grove Rugby Park (2 p.m. CT).
“We’re a team where we’ve always had to recruit new players, so a lot of times we’re recruiting people who have never played rugby… so we were always one step behind the other teams,” said Maines, the team captain.
BROOK JONES / FREE PRESS Courtney Maines and the underdog Brombies prepare for Saturday’s clash against five-time reigning champion Assassins squad at Maple Grove Rugby Park.
The Brumbies took a step forward last season but lost a tough match to the Sturgeon Creek Rowdies in the semis. This year, the continuity has improved, and the buy-in among players is as good as it’s ever been.
A win on Saturday could go a long way toward building the notoriety of a club.
“Even just making it to the finals is a pretty big deal for the Brumbies,” Maines added, “so we’re just kind of ready to give it our all and try and get that championship.”
The 29-year-old Maines, a speedy athlete who plays the No. 10 position (akin to a quarterback in gridiron football), joined the Brumbies in 2014 and spent three years playing for the women’s team at St. Francis Xavier University (Nova Scotia).
She admitted the Brumbies are the underdogs in their match — just like Team Canada — but said both clubs have all the momentum in the world powering them into their championship contests.
“It’s pretty inspiring, watching that (semifinal) game and seeing them make it to the finals (for the first time) in a really long time, it kind of helps me as an individual be like, ‘Just because we haven’t won it, doesn’t mean we can’t do it,’” she said.
“It’s very cool to be in the finals at the same time that the Canadian women are, as well.”
Team Canada — which previously reached the final in 2014 — has been on a run for the storybooks after needing to partially crowdfund to cover its expenses for the tournament. The world No. 2 Canadians have made sure that money was well spent, finishing the group stage unscathed at 3-0 before knocking off Australia in the quarterfinals and dethroning New Zealand in the semifinals.
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“It’s fabulous,” said Brumbies president Colleen Horton, who co-founded the team in 2010 and coached them for a decade.
“It’s just national pride, and it’s a historic moment. They come into this tournament ranked No. 2, so it kind of makes sense that they would be in the finals, but it never generally is. For having these women, who started off with nothing… it’s phenomenal.”
The Canadian women’s accomplishments hit close to home for Horton, who played for the national team in 1987 and was inducted into the Manitoba Rugby Hall of Fame in 2021.
Horton, who heads the women’s rugby program at Dakota Collegiate, believes the team’s performance can have a significant impact on the future of the sport in the province and across the country.
“When these girls in Manitoba see this World Cup, it’s just inspiration for them,” Horton said. “As far as the pathways go for these girls to get there, obviously, the resources coming from World Rugby and all the way down… it should have the trickle effect. There should be a little bit more money that’s coming down into this, so the pathways for these girls should open up a bit more.”
“When these girls in Manitoba see this World Cup, it’s just inspiration for them.”
The women’s premier final will follow the men’s Division 2 final at noon and precede the men’s premier final at 4 p.m.
While Maines is one of the youngest who will take the pitch on Saturday, Blake Morden is the elder statesman this weekend. The 57-year-old is the only player who played at Maple Grove Rugby Park’s grand opening in 1985, a testament to his longevity in a physically demanding sport.
Morden, an all-purpose substitution with the Winnipeg Wasps, is trying to help the club to its first men’s premier title since 2013. To do that, they will need to knock off the Wombats, a team that has shaped into a perennial contender.
“My team is such an underdog, it’s unbelievable,” said Morden. “For us to even get to the finals is an absolute testament to pure spirit and will because, realistically, the other teams that we beat to get here have had fantastic coaching and game plans, and they’ve had excellent cohesiveness, and we’ve kind of just been a chaotic bunch of athletes putting it together.”
There’s also a personal achievement on the line, as Morden owns provincial championships from the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s.
“Now I need one in the 2020s so I can give myself five decades worth of run for championships,” said Morden. “It means a lot, not just to me, but to the club.”
joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca
X: @jfreysam
Josh Frey-Sam reports on sports and business at the Free Press. Josh got his start at the paper in 2022, just weeks after graduating from the Creative Communications program at Red River College. He reports primarily on amateur teams and athletes in sports. Read more about Josh.
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