Just before he lunged across the goal line into the end zone with the winning try which gave the Terrace Northmen the chance to defend their provincial independent club rugby championship Saturday at Kelly Road field, Craig Dunfield was gasping for breath, asking his coach to send in a replacement.
Good thing for the Northmen, coach Phil Blundon was in no mood to see one of his star athletes come out of the game. Not with his team starting to surge against the Prince George Gnats.
"I was absolutely dead on my feet and looking for a sub, and fortunately for me the coach said, 'Shut up and get out there and play,'" said the 37-year-old Dunfield, whose major score came in a 10-7 victory. "We had some great forward crashes, moved the ball and there just happened to be a bit of a gap there, so it was just super-lucky, but I'm happy it was me. It was a ridiculously tough game."
Anyone familiar with the Prince George Senior Lacrosse Association in the late-1990s and early 2000s will remember Dunfield as one of the league's top scorers when he played for the First Litre/College Heights Pub Assault. Now working in Terrace as a commercial banker, Dunfield moved there six years ago. Because there is no senior lacrosse team in Terrace he took up rugby the year he arrived there and has since become an integral part of the Northmen second row, playing the lock position.
"I think I made it back for one lacrosse game but a six-hour drive is pretty hard to do," said Dunfield. "Rugby season is the same as box lacrosse and it was a great transition in terms of team mentality and a tight group of guys and physicality. I was committed to lacrosse in high school and didn't figure I had the time for rugby and I'm not going to lie, it looked like a really rough sport."
Just before Dunfield scored, Arlan Fifield grabbed the ball at the 40-yard line and took off on a gallop with only two Gnats defenders between him and the end zone. But one of those Gnats was Jarryd Kurisu and he put the wraps on Fifield and brought him down. However, out of the ensuing scrum, Dunfield got the ball and from seven yards out he dove across the line to give the Northmen an 8-7 lead. Curtis Mercer added the convert which clinched the win.
"Craig wanted to come out but even your tired key guys, they need to be on the field, they're the leaders," said Blundon. "For an old guy who has only been in the sport for six years, he's a tremendous athlete."
Cris Monetta gave the Gnats the lead with a short run for a major. Although the Northmen played most of the second half on the Gnats side of the field, they didn't come close to scoring until the late stages of the game.
"There were a few breakouts that were contained by each team and it was a close game and it's unusual to see such a low-scoring game in our league," said Gnats veteran Markuu Paivaranta. "Any time anybody took a break it was corralled in."
Neither team was allowed much running room in a tightly-played 80-minute game which had a similar ending to the game in Terrace three weeks prior. In that one, the Gnats got a last-play-of-the-game try from Theo Ludwig and Troy McKenzie added the convert to hand the Northmen their only loss of the season, a 24-22 decision.
The thriller in Terrace set up Saturday's winner-take-all regular-season finale. Both teams came in with 4-1 records. At stake was the Central Interior Rugby Union season championship and a chance to represent the CIRU in the Saratoga Cup tournament in Penticton, July 29-30.
"It's pretty huge coming off last year's win, no one really expected us to go down there and do anything," said Blundon. "We went with a strong team and I think we took 30 bodies with us last year. We're not going to go with that many this year. We're missing a couple of firefighters who are real studs and I think if we can get them out for that I think we can make a run for it again."
Ita Lapana, the Gnats' Samoa-born outside centre, nearly broke free for a 50-yard run a couple minutes after the Northmen got the lead but the hole closed on him 15 yards shy of the end zone and he was swarmed by Northmen.
"I think it could have gone either way – a couple of tough breaks and that's the way it goes," said McKenzie. "They're a good team and we were trying to hang on (to the lead) instead of trying to punch through at the end and they managed to get one in.
"We've been rebuilding for a few years and this is as close as we've got for awhile and hopefully we'll punch through next year."
Neither team had many spares on the sideline and Gnats prop James Hope probably left the field with bruises on his bruises after he was asked to supply a lot of the muscle leading his team out of the trenches.
"They brought their A-game today – they ran hard and tackled hard and they deserved to win, " said Hope. "It was a hard-fought game and you can't be too upset about losing that."
