KICKERS COME SECOND IN ISLAND RUGBY

KICKERS COME SECOND IN ISLAND RUGBY

by | May 3, 2011 | Uncategorized

The Comox Valley Kickers ended their 2010-2011 season on Sunday losing the Island 3rd Division Final 24-5 to the league leading Velox-Valhallians in Victoria. Centre Steve Hextall, the Kickers top scorer ran in his team’s lone try, his seventeenth of the season. The loss left the Kickers with a 10-6 overall record for the year and marked the team’s second loss to Velox having lost to the Victoria club 45-10 in the Fall play-offs. “ It was a tough day at the office,” said Kickers coach Aaron L’Arivee after the game. “We were without some of our reliable regulars Leigh Burley, Doug Wynd and Brandon Huddleston because of injury, and they had some really experienced guys like Kevin Wirachowski in the front row, who gave them a lot of power and experience in the pack.” Former Canadian International Wirachowski won 17 caps for Canada over eleven years from 1993to 2002 and was recognized as one of the best set scrummagers in the game and though he will celebrate his 48th birthday this coming December he continues to be a formidable force in every facet of forward play. Right from the opening whistle, the home team used their forwards to effect making the visiting Kickers defend for 80% of the game as it enjoyed an enormous amount of possession, The home team held a 12-5 lead at half-time. Just before the break, the Kickers managed a phase of possession that saw its forwards pick and drive to near the Velox line and when scrum-half Greg Merchant passed the ball out to his backs centre Hextall found a way over the...
COMOX VALLEY KICKERS ANNUAL AWARDS DINNER

COMOX VALLEY KICKERS ANNUAL AWARDS DINNER

by | Apr 21, 2011 | Uncategorized

KICKERS AWARDS DINNER May 14, 6.00 p.m. @ Fallen Alders Upstairs Hall. AGM and election of Executive for 2011/2012 season will take place at 6.30 P.M. with Dinner (7.30) with Guest Speaker, Awards Presentations and Dancing to follow. Cost $20/person. Senior Men, Senior Women, Juniors and family and friends all invited and welcome. Wear club colours if you have them or dress “Smart Casual”. Guest Speaker: Mr. Gary Dukelowformer Canadian International prop winner of 14 caps and a member of the 1991 Rugby World Cup squad to France. Captained U. Vic. where he was twice named MVP and was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 2007. Captained Cowichan R.F.C. and the Crimson Tide. One of Canada’s first professional players when he played for Kobe Steel in the 1980s. Served as General Manager of Canada’s Senior Men’s team. Teaches Economics at Shawnigan Lake School where he also runs its External Programs. Sign up on a sheet in the clubhouse or e-mail kennedyi@uniserve.com so that we can monitor numbers and arrange for the proper amount of food. The AWARDS DINNER AND DANCE will be a fantastic night at our FALLEN ALDERS facility.- last year’s dinner was a huge success. Come for a great dinner, listen to a superb inspirational speaker and find out who will win the MVP, Green Jockstrap, Best Forward and Best Back, Best Rookie, Most Improved etc. in all of our teams. It will be a great night. Be There!! REMEMBER: to RSVP: Sign up in the clubhouse or e-mail...

LLEWELLYN RETURNS TO PACE KICKERS TO BIG WIN

by | Mar 27, 2011 | Uncategorized

Chelsea Llewellyn hadn’t played rugby for four years but last Saturday she laced up her boots to join some of her former J.P. Vanier team-mates and help power the Kickers Women team to its biggest win of the season. Chelsea scored a record-setting five tries as the Kickers romped over the visiting Velox Valhallians, 67-19. A player of enormous talent, athleticism and graceful running, Chelsea, who played for Canada at the U-19 level and B.C. at the Senior level, began in the centre for the Kickers and scored her first try near the end of the first half. In the second stanza, playing both centre and scrum-half, she ran in another four tallies, capping a twenty-five point afternoon. “I have been away from the Valley playing at U. Vic. for five years and then I was completing my Sea-King helicopter training with the military — winning my wings in November. When I recently came home for a couple of months before reporting to my first posting in Victoria, some of my former teammates from Vanier days asked me to come out for a game with the Kickers,” says Chelsea. “It was great to be back on the field.” Asked which of her tries she thought best, she offered that the one she took while playing scrum-half was the cream of the crop. “ I don’t think there were a single pair of eyes on me when I took the quick tap penalty and ran in. It’s always nice to get one over on the opposition with a bit of quick thinking.” Not to be outdone, Kicker fly-half Paula Moore...

WILLIS SELECTED TO CANADA’S ENGLAND TOUR

by | Mar 2, 2011 | Uncategorized

When the Naional team coach comes up to you after a trial match, puts his arm round your shoulder and congratulates you on your fine play, there’s a better than even chance you’ll be selected to the team. Canada’s National Team Coach Jim Delaney did exactly that to Comox Valley Kicker’s centre Connor Willis last month and just the other day Connor received word that he has been selected to the Canada U-17 team to tour England this Easter. Never in Doubt! Willis is a fantastic rugby talent who has risen through the ranks of the Investors Group Comox Valley Kickers Juniors, the Lake Trail School XV, the Vanier School XV, the Vancouver Island Tsunami, the British Columbia and the Canada U-17 “B” squads to reach the pinnacle he has now attained. Willis has consistently been the star of any of the teams he has played for, scoring tries, defending assuredly and kicking points with his boot, and it is his awareness of space and his ability to read the field that makes Connor such a promising player for even higher honours in the future. To top it all he is an Honor Roll student as well as a very capable athlete which should see him win athletic scholarships down the road. Last year when he was sixteen, Willis played for the Canada’s U-17 “B” domestic squad on a three-game tour around B.C., but this year won elevation to the Canada “A” squad that made a two-game Christmas tour to California during which Willis scored a try against the U.S. All- Americans in the team’s final game. “It was...