Image: Jo Richards

St Laurence’s first XV coach Welmar du Plessis said his side won’t be getting ahead of themselves despite upsetting Marist Ashgrove 15-7 in the opening round of the 2021 AIC competition on Saturday. 

Lauries fought back from 7-0 down, scoring back to back tries on either side of half time to set up the school’s first victory over Ashgrove in 13 years. 

“It was a real arm wrestle, a very old school game of rugby,” du Plessis told Rugby News. 

“Defence was always going to be crucial against Ashgrove and I thought our boys really stepped up in that department. 

“We also played the territorial game well in the wet with good kicking out of hand which put us in the right areas of the field.

The coach said ball control and decision making proved the difference for his side, who missed a chance to claim a breakthrough AIC first XV premiership last year when a playoff match against Marist was cancelled following a Covid outbreak. 

“Saturday was a massive day for the school, beating Ashgrove in both firsts and seconds, that’s something that hasn’t happened in quite a few years.

“There was a lot of excitement after the game from the boys, the parents and our old boys which was really good to see. 

“Ashgrove are our traditional rivals and they have had our number for a few years now, so it was good to break the duck against them. 

“A lot of the juniors will take a lot of confidence out of our win and hopefully this is the start of a few more.”

Du Plessis said it was difficult to single out his side’s best on Saturday. 

“It was a good team effort. It was always going to need to be to beat Ashgrove and fortunately our guys produced when it mattered.” 

Despite that, the coach said there was still a long way to go in the 2021 AIC title race. 

“We’ve won one game and one game only. We can’t get ahead of ourselves now,” he said. 

There are still six weeks to go and this year’s comp is pretty even like most years, so we need to press the reset button and go again this week.

“We have Padua this week and they are one of the favourites this year, so that is where our focus will be.”

In other results, Iona scored a late try to beat rivals Villanova 20-18, Padua were too good for St Peter’s and St Pat’s opened their season with a 17-8 win over Eddies.