Humber rugby players set their sights on provincials

By: Julia Vellucci
Humber Athletics Communications

Meghan Aucoin, who plays on the Humber Hawks Women's Rugby team and is in Guelph-Humber's Media Communications program, describes rugby as a sport that is not about the individual but rather about team mentality and sticking together.

Aucoin went from playing rep hockey for the longest time to giving rugby a try in high school when the rugby coach saw her in the halls and encouraged her to try out. She has loved the sport ever since.

"Everybody's always saying rugby is the closest or the most contact you can get in women's sports. I don't know, it's just so much fun," she said.

"I don't think I'm good enough to be pro, but it's definitely a hobby. Also, at this point, it's taken over my whole life," Aucoin said. "Our season is really short. It's only about two months, so we're out there practicing at least three times a week and playing up to two times a week, and we're in the gym a lot too."

"It keeps me active and I'm playing with my friends. Honestly as much as it is keeping me active, it's also keeping me social. A lot of my life revolves around it. I love being a part of a team, and it's come to a point where I consider everyone on the team family, so we've got a good group," Aucoin continued.

She said her team has had an excellent season, finishing in third place during the regular season. She is happy about this and is going into provincials with the intention of maintaining that or going for a gold or silver medal.

"I think we set a team goal that we would win a medal this year. I think it's a possibility. We're all hard workers and doing really well," Aucoin added.

She wrote a goal down in her journal: Go into the provincials as a leader on the team, help the rest of the team perform their best, go in with a good vibe, and win some games.

For the men's side of provincials, Prince Ndukwe, who is studying kinesiology at Guelph-Humber and plays for the men's rugby team, said his team came first in the league.

"We're not playing the quarterfinals; we go straight to the semifinal and play whoever wins the quarterfinal game," Ndukwe said.

"It's gold or nothing this year," he continued.

Ndukwe has been playing rugby for Humber for four years, which he gave a shot to thanks to his sister's encouragement. He feels that rugby has taught him a lot about life.

"Rugby introduced me to a lot of new environments that I hold near and dear to me, and I've met a lot of people who are really important to me through rugby as well," he emphasized.

"Goal number one would be to win gold for the team, especially because we're a good group of the guys, especially all of our captains, all the captains for the team it's all of our last years as well," Ndukwe said.

"We want to bring that back to Humber because it's been nine or 10 years since Humber last won gold. The regular season is over. I got scoring champ for the season, so I guess that's a goal that I hit," he said.

"Outside of that, I really just win, motivate the guys and make people better rugby players and better people," Ndukwe said.

He said about two years ago, he was considering being more behind the scenes for the team, through coaching or managing as he had a concussion his second year.

This concussion really set him back in terms of school and work, but he stuck through with it as his first real rugby coach passed away around the same time.

"My first real rugby coach passed away, not too far away from that. That kind of drove me to just really want to stick with the sport and see whatever I can get to and whatever I can get out of it as much as possible wow," Ndukwe said.

"My go-to saying that that coach would always tell me would be firstly, why not you? Secondly, it would be to pay it forward. Anything you do, just pay it forward. Anything you learn, pay it forward. Anything you get, pay it forward," he said.

Editor update: Meghan Aucoin and the Humber rugby sevens team went on to capture the OCAA bronze medal on October 28 in Belleville, defeating the Algonquin Wolves, 27-7.