Rock ready to respond against Blues

St. John's, NL

The Rock will play their third game of the Americas Rugby Championship on Saturday, September 26th at Fletcher’s Field in Markham, Ontario.

The Rock are currently second in the Canadian Conference – BC have 9 points, The Rock 6 points, the Wolf Pack 4 and Ontario 2.However, all 4 teams can still qualify for the Canadian Semi-Final on Saturday, October 10th. Ontario can qualify if they beat The Rock and the Prairies lose to BC.

Of further importance, the 2 Semi-Finalists will both play on Saturday, October 17th in Toronto, with the winner playing the winner of Argentina Jaguars vs. USA Select XV, and both losers playing each other.The Rock Coach Pat Parfrey commented that, “We were very disappointed with our performance against BC. If skill is execution under pressure then we were not optimal in several facets of the game. This can only be resolved by the current players as we do not have a batch of other players to select from. We have some injuries in Morgan Lovell, Jebb Sinclair, and Tyler Wish, so the starting team will not be announced until Wednesday evening.”

“The Rock has a tradition of responding strongly to adversity, so I anticipate a great effort on Saturday. Having said that we expect that Ontario will also be intense and that the physical pressure will be high, especially from their big pack of forwards,” said the captain Kevin Parfrey. "This competition is awesome because each game has been critical, and now a play-off berth and the chance to play international teams is on the line.“

The squad is: Props: Frank Walsh, Rod Snow, Dan King

Hookers: Owen Parfrey, Rob Wright

2nd Row: Chris Mooney, Brad Lester, Phil Alcock

Backrow: Jebb Sinclair, Chauncey O'Toole, Kevin Parfrey, Simon Pitfield

Half Backs: Adam Paul, Brent Rowney, Dean Blanks, Patrick Parfrey

Centers: Tyler Wish, Robert Wilson

Wings: Geoff Warden, Simon Pacey, Mike Rudofsky, Jason Picco or Morgan Lovell

Full Back: Ciaran Hearn