The perfect storm of misfortune has sidelined the Foothills Senior Lions.
Foothills’ second division side was forced to forfeit the remainder of its Calgary Rugby Union season due to a lack of numbers stemming from a plethora of long-term injuries over the course of several months of bad luck.
“It’s always unfortunate to have any team fold,” said Lions club captain Nathan Marquardt. “It was taken out of our hands. Once we did the count up and had only a certain amount of players and not enough to see the season out, there wasn’t really any other choice.”
Foothills launched its division two side in the 2012 season where it has remained a competitive force in the CRU despite its standing as a much smaller club to its big city counterparts.
The Lions feature players from across the Foothills region from High Country to High River to Okotoks and boast a number of graduates from strong high school programs including Holy Trinity Academy, Foothills Composite, Oilfields and Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School.
“It is very frustrating,” Marquardt said. “Especially when we’re one of the outer city clubs and speak for a fairly large area south of Calgary, the Foothills should be a large area to feed a team of our size. Especially with that being the problem, numbers being the issue.”
Registration has been an ongoing issue for the side over the past couple seasons.
However, the club entered the 2016 campaign optimistic with approximately 26 bodies ready to hit the pitch on the heels of a strong season the summer prior.
The injury bug bit hard as the Lions struggled to find their footing, losing their first five games in the highly competitive second division.
“A lot of it was unlucky,” Marquardt said. “We had some guys who really struggled and tried hard to rehab and comeback and ended up re-injuring their previous injuries.”
As the injured list expanded so did the roles of the healthy players on the roster. The numbers crunch forced an over-extension for some players, leading to further setbacks.
“It seemed to be a ridiculous idea to try and scrounge together enough guys every weekend to play a game,” said Lions vice-captain Jordan Smith. “We were thinking of hopefully saving teams the waste of time of showing up for games and us having to forfeit anyway because we don’t have enough to put up a half decent game.
“We’re definitely not counting out the idea of having a men’s side again. It’s just something we had to do for this season.”
Smith added the recession had an impact on Lions numbers as player registration fees became too onerous for some potential players.
“A lot of guys got hit hard with the financial crunch,” Smith said. “We might have to re-think how we finance our fees next year just to keep guys around.”
For the remainder of the season, the Foothills players have more than a few options.
The rugby world is a small, tight-knit community and in the wake of the news the Lions players have received invitations from nearly every team in the city to continue to play.
Those invitations range across the divisions.
Lions top back Dan Larson saw action with the Div. I Calgary Saints last week while a good number of Foothills players could line-up with the third division Cochrane Barbarians – a shared Foothills/Cochrane side — to conclude the summer campaign.
The club came to the decision at its training session on July 19, opting to bite the bullet as soon as possible for the sake of both itself and the rest of the league members.
The decision is hard on players and management alike.
For, second-year club coach and senior rugby director Rogan McPhie, the decision had to be made even when considering the countless volunteer hours that went into fielding and organizing the Lions program.
“We knew what it was going to be like, especially for myself and a few of the older guys who’ve been helping me coach this year,” McPhie said. They understood how much effort it is trying to organize guys on a last minute notice to come and play rugby.
“It wouldn’t be fair on the volunteers or the guys who put in so much effort.”
The coach said the club could be facing a fine from the CRU for folding – a figure which could be as high as $3,000. Given the extenuating circumstances and the fact the team was in good stead entering the season, McPhie is hopeful of leniency from the league.
Going forward the club expects to re-evaluate the plans for the senior program at the end of the summer season.
One of the ideas bandied about is to drop down to third division for the 2017 season as a means to re-build.
“I’m all for it myself,” Smith said. “There are a lot of older players in town who would be more interested in playing for us if we had a third division team. Some of those older players can’t be committed to that competitive side of (second division).
“If we could get more of those guys out I think it would be excellent for the club.”
For more information on the Foothills Lions go to foothillslionsrfc.org
