Article written by Peter Reimer, Sports Information & Promotion Coordinator, RMC Paladins
After the Paladins qualified for the Rugby Canada University National Championship , the OUA announced the league All-Stars and major award winners on Thursday.
RMC’s Thomas Weissenborn, Brayden Gray, Matthew Young, and Glenn Butler were named OUA East All-Stars, while head coach Sean McDonaugh earned his second career OUA Coach of the Year award.
“Those guys’ commitment to the defensive part of the game, and taking care of the set piece stuff – particularly the three guys that are forwards – has led to their individual successes, but also enabled us this year to pull off an upset against McMaster and hang in a couple other games,” McDonaugh said.
The Paladins finished the regular season with a 3-1 record, having defeated Toronto, McMaster, and Trent. Queen’s, who will host the national championship at the end of November, was the only team to top RMC this season.
Weissenborn, Gray, and Young are the Paladins forwards who earned recognition around the league for their efforts this year, while fullback Butler was named an OUA All-Star for the second time in his career.
Despite making the OUA playoffs, qualifying for nationals, and earning Coach of the Year honours, McDonaugh’s top moment of the season came in a semi-final loss to Queen’s, and had little to do with the sport of rugby itself.
“For all the different things we’ve done this year, for me that was the highlight so far of the year: us looking out for each other when one of us took a pretty big thumping on the goal line,” he said. “I just liked the way our best players came over and literally picked that guy off the ground and put their arms around him and walked back to the huddle.” Read the rest of the story here.
So many formative leadership development experiences come from competitive sports, and particularly from the intensity of varsity rugby. The character of this team, looking out for each other, and each player being responsible for playing their part, in addition to the tremendous level of effort, all of this is worth celebrating! Well done Coach Sean and to the entire team. BZ!
A BIG Bravo Zulu to Sean and the entire RMC Rugby program!