Blues beat Wolf Pack with four tries from Lloyd

Mississauga winger, Kainoa Lloyd scored four tries to secure a win for the Ontario Blues against the Prairie Wolf Pack in the Canadian Rugby Championships at Calgary Rugby Park on Sunday.

The other winger, Dan Moore opened up the scoring for the Ontario side after ten minutes of intense pressure on the Wolf Pack line. Andrew Ferguson scored the first of several conversions, just one part of his excellent game at scrum-half. Carl Pocock, from the Calgary Rams, failed with his first penalty kick but slotted one in after 23 minutes to make it 3-7. The score might have gone in favour of the Wolf Pack after 26 minutes but what looked like a certain try was pulled back after the referee called a crossing obstruction.

Two minutes later, Shawn Windsor broke through and loaded off to Lloyd for his first try. A box kick by Ferguson was charged down in the Blues own 22m leading to a scrum. The Wolf Pack won possession and threw the ball out left for winger Brandon Baker to go over. Pocock converted to close the gap to four points. Soon after the restart, the Blues won the ball in the line out and spun it out left for Lloyd to score his second try. He was over there in the corner again five minutes later to make it a hat trick and give the Blues a 28-10 lead at half time.

The Wolf Pack got off to a cracking start for the second half. The crowd in the stand saw Number 8, Jeremy Kyne charge over the line. It may have looked like he scored from a distance but the closer eyes of the linesman saw, correctly, that the ball was not properly grounded. “No, no, no”, he shouted loudly and no try was awarded.

After 19 minutes, Ferguson took the ball himself from the scrum and charged through two tackles to put the ball down in the left corner. It was a bit far out for his conversion but the Oakville player had moved the score up for the Blues to 33-10.

Five minutes later, a handling error by the Wolf Pack backs was capitalized on by Shawn Windsor, who ran over to the right of the posts for a try. Lloyd got his fourth try after 29 minutes when he fly-kicked a loose ball and raced past two defenders to ground the ball.

The game was set to run away from the Pack but they picked up the pace and pressured the Blues line in the last ten minutes, resulting in a try by Calgary Saints and Canada international centre, Mozac Samson and a second by Carl Pocock. Time ran out for the Pack though, and the Blues won 45-22.

For more photographs of this and other games, please visit the Rugby gallery at J. Ashley Nixon Photography.