Page 28 - QARANC Vol 14 No 13 2016

26 QARANC THE GAZETTE
Exercise Canadian Medic - AMS (W) Canada Tour 2016
We arrived on 5 July with a varied team of excited experienced players and enthusiastic newcomers, all about to undertake a unique Canadian rugby experience.
Our initial two training sessions were the first opportunities for us to play as a team and get to know how each other played before our first game on 7 July against tough opposition, the Aurora Barbarians, a team of high-level and even international level players who would test us, forcing us to raise our game and push ourselves to our limits. Although the game was physically demanding we put our all into it, throwing our newbies in at the deep end and showing off the talents of the more experienced individuals, but the Barbarians were just too much for us to handle in the soaring temperatures, giving us our first loss 71-0. It was a laborious 80 minutes which we all learnt valuable lessons from to implement for the rest of our time in Canada. Pte Emma Shreves (RAMC) earnt our man of the match from this tough game, although surprisingly this was also her first ever game of rugby!
Aching bodies awoke the following day, and after some post game analysis we were given the afternoon to recover, so we immersed ourselves into Canadian culture and went to the Rogers Centre to watch a game of baseball, which for some of the women was a brand new experience. The Blue Jays were playing at home against the Detroit Tigers and we managed to watch them win 5-4.
After a few more training sessions we approached the second game of our tour against the Oshawa Vikings. Determined to win this we went into the game prepared and feeling confident. During the first 10 minutes we knew we could make a good game and even beat the Vikings, but they were a close side and knew how to play to their strengths,
forcing us to deviate from our game-plan and to play their game. This meant we were giving them too much possession and causing our own communication to slack. We did manage to get some points on the board thanks to Lt Robyn Sharp (RAMC), and converted by SSgt Jones (RAMC), but this wasn’t enough as we were already behind and lost the game 26-7. LCpl Wuehr (QARANC) picked up their man of the match for this game and the previous game; can she make it a hat-trick against the final team, the Kingston Panthers?
Two losses was just not good enough for us, so we hit the training paddock hard under the guidance of our three coaches WO1 Lee Richens (Director of Rugby), Sgt Colin Lowe (Head Coach) and Maj Adam Hughes (Forwards Coach). We were starting to come together well and the physical changes in having the consolidated time as a team were proving invaluable. Our last night in Toronto, before moving on to Ottawa, saw us enjoying a team meal on a boat trip around Lake Ontario, viewing the beautiful skyline of Toronto.
Our final game was against the Kingston Panthers on 17 July and we didn’t know what to expect, so we went in with a different mentality, wanting to have fun and also show off what we’d learnt over our time already spent in Canada. With our camaraderie at its peak we played with immense pace, aggression and some fantastic support play. Unfortunately during this game we had 2 major injuries that seemed to knock our confidence and was extremely unsettling to the new players. Despite these crucial players being taken off we had to refocus ourselves to ensure we ended the tour on a high, which we did, beating the Panthers 41 - 7 (the