Throughout the first four weeks of the season, 2009 was definitely a year to forget for the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks women’s rugby team.
Coming into their final game of the season last Friday, the Hawks were 0-4 and had suffered some humiliating defeats along the way.
But in Friday’s game against the Waterloo Warriors, the purple and gold finally broke through, winning 7-5.
“I think we need a 10-week season rather than a five-week season,” said head coach Jennifer Armatage.
“The team’s really just coming together now, we were hungry and focused today and we got it done.”
To give an indication of just how much the Hawks struggled early in the season, they opened their season with a 90-0 defeat at the hands of the Guelph Gryphons and followed that with a 50-0 loss to the Brock Badgers.
In fact, coming into the game against the Warriors, the Hawks only scored eight points all season – a try is worth seven – and had lost 87-3 to the Western Mustangs the previous week.
“You really have to work hard to focus on the good things,” said Armatage of dealing with such one-sided losses.
“You try to fix the little things that you can but you have to keep focusing on what you’re doing right and try to build off of it.”
Things finally seemed to go right for the Hawks against the Warriors; after rookie Christine Jennings scored a try early in the game – the team’s second all year – they managed to hold of their cross-town rivals and come away with the win when Waterloo failed to convert on their only try of the game.
While the win didn’t put the Hawks in the playoffs, it gives them something to build from heading into next season and Armatage is optimistic about the team going forward.
“I’m very excited, I think they’ve realized the talent that they have,” she said.
“Some good things are happening for the women’s rugby team in the future.”
