Every now and again, you’re going to have a noticeably good game.
Ty Hawes had one of those games against Foothills Lions of Okotoks on June 6. Playing at the No. 8 position, the Bow Valley Grizzlies player/coach scored three tries, two on garish, protracted runs in the Cochrane-based team’s 37-34 Calgary Rugby Union Second Division win over Lions.
Hawes’s two second-half scores within about 90 seconds of each other, one on an opportunistic ball theft between Lions’ passers, provided the cushion Grizzlies (2-3) needed to hang on for the victory at Mitford Pond field. Ian Ames and Connor Gilbert also scored for Bow Valley.
“It’s good for the boys. We definitely needed the win,” said Hawes. “It’s really good for morale. I think maybe the tide will start to change.”
Hawes insists the Grizzlies lost two “winnable” games the previous two weeks, dropping a 29-26 score May 30 in Red Deer and a 33-30 score May 23 to visiting Lethbridge. With his team’s offence scoring at a healthy 30 points per match, it’s the defence he’ll be schooling in practice – an early, long run by Lions to open scoring in the June 6 fixture drawing his ire on the pitch.
“What’s hurting us is our defensive stuff,” he insisted. “We’re trying to straighten it out, but our one-up tackles is what’s killing us.”
Playing in 25C heat was also a revelation. The first really hot game day of the season started to wear on both sides late in the match. But Lions made it close, scoring the game’s final two tries.
“The guys were bagged,” Hawes related. “The boys definitely have to be doing stuff outside training. If they want to achieve something at this level, it’s within their grasp. They have to put in the work.”
As for his three-score day: “I’m working hard in the gym, I have to be able to walk the walk to talk the talk.”
