The Prince George Gnats were light on numbers. Shored up by players from Smithers, they posted a 1-1 record at the annual Sea Fest men's rugby tournament in Prince Rupert.
At the weekend gathering, the Gnats started with a 22-17 loss to Terrace and then beat Prince Rupert 27-17.
"It went decent but it's always hard when you join up with guys you've never played with before," said Derrick Przysieny of the Gnats. "It took the first game to kind of settle things out so we played a lot better against Prince Rupert than we did against Terrace."
Work and family commitments kept many of the Gnats home. Just seven of them made the trip west.
The best of the Prince George players was flanker Robbie McCleary, who scored a pair of tries in the victory against Prince Rupert.
"He was running the ball really well -- had a couple of good crashes and stuff," Przysieny said.
"Our pack also did well. That's pretty much all we brought was forwards. We didn't have any backs. Our whole back line was all Smithers guys."
The Smithers player who made the biggest impact was Ben Harris, a standoff. Harris hails from New Zealand and is a new arrival in Canada. The Gnats are trying to add him to their lineup on a more permanent basis.
"We're trying but he lives in Smithers," Przysieny said with a laugh. "He said if he had any free weekends he might try and make it [for games]. Smithers is pretty short on numbers. They don't have a whole team right now. I think they had six or seven guys as well."
The Gnats will be back at full strength this coming weekend when they host the Williams Lake Rustlers in a Central Interior Rugby Union league game. The contest, Saturday at 1 p.m. at Kelly Road secondary school, will be the second meeting of the season between the clubs. When they last went head-to-head, May 27 in Williams Lake, the Rustlers nipped the Gnats 20-19.
In preparation for the rematch, the Gnats will be making some adjustments at practice this week.
"We have to watch some of their backs -- they've got some young, strong, fast backs," Przysieny said. "We have to get out wide and have some good defence."
