Florent Rossigneux Runs Junior Rugby Practice

Rugby Canada representative Florent Rossigneux acted as a guest coach at the first indoor practice of the year at Monseigneur Richard High School in Verdun with several current and hopeful future U18 MONTREAL EXILES RFC players in attendance.

Rugby Canada Representative Florent Rossigneux Guest Coaches Future Montreal Exiles

A very experienced player and now coach, Florent Rossigneux played for the Racing Club de Paris and the French Barbarians, before moving to England from France and playing professionally at Richmond, with the London Wasps, at Bedford and with the London Welsh.

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Exiles in Local School Quarterly Magazine

The MONTREAL EXILES RFC are always looking for new recruits and people to get involved with our newly founded NDG club.  Players are always welcome as we continue to develop our senior men’s program and stress the importance of developing youth rugby.

The future of the club is dependent on the youth coming up and our hope is that youngsters from the NDG and surrounding areas will be keen and excited to continue playing rugby once their school seasons’ and high school careers’ are over.  To that effect, in the last issue of the LCC Lion – Lower Canada College’s quarterly magazine – a brief blurb can be found briefly summarizing last season and enticing LCC students and alumni to come out and play.  Our hope is that players from other schools follow suit.

The MONTREAL EXILES RFC currently practice Tuesdays from 6:30PM-8:30PM at Lasalle Community Comprehensive High School in Lasalle and will look to add Thursdays to our indoor practice schedule at the end of March.

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2012 Indoor Training Begins

The MONTREAL EXILES RFC will be holding their first indoor training to gear up for the 2012 season on Tuesday, February 7th from 6:30-8:30PM.  Training will be at LaSalle Community Comprehensive High School.

240-9th Avenue
LaSalle, Québec  H8P 2N9

Please bring water, appropriate clothing and clean & dry gym shoes.  Enter by the mall/gym doors to the left of the main entrance from 9th Avenue.

Make sure to check the website weekly for all training updates and stay tuned for news about the first official Exiles social of 2012!

The Exiles would also like to take this opportunity to wish our very own Jerry Begic an early HAPPY 35th BIRTHDAY and we hope that you will all join us this Saturday, February 4th at Nesta Bar & Lounge (3519 St Laurent) to help him celebrate!

Any questions?  Email: info@montrealexiles.com

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Exiles 2011 Banquet

The MONTREAL EXILES RFC celebrated and paid homage to their inaugural season with a banquet filled weekend in early November.  The U18 MONTREAL EXILES RFC celebrated on Friday, November 11th at the Rose Bowl in NDG where the juniors, their coaches, and several senior Exiles enjoyed a fun-filled evening full of pizza, bowling and awards presentations.

U18 Montreal Exiles RFC 2011 Banquet

MAJOR AWARD WINNERS:

U18 Club Person of the Year – Jordon Gomes
U18 Forward of the Year – Chayse Moore
U18 Back of the Year – Kyle Brunet

Montreal Exiles RFC Founding Members

The following evening on Saturday, November 12th, the senior MONTREAL EXILES RFC had their awards banquet at Grubz Dinner in NDG.  The evening was filled with great MC’ing and guest presenters, amazing award presentations, a season recapping slideshow and was a fantastic way to mark the closing of the Exiles inaugural 2011 season.  Thank you to all who made the evening a success and get ready for 2012!

MAJOR AWARD WINNERS:

Social Person of the Year – Alex Karen
Club Person of the Year – William Scott
Rookie of the Year – JF Lafleur
Most Improved – Adamo Ionata
Player’s Player – Mathieu Garston
Player of the Year – Telly Loukas

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AND AGAIN!

Just a day after being written about in the NDG Free Press, the MONTREAL EXILES RFC were also written about by Mitch Gallo in The Suburban in their November 9th, 2011 issue.  Check us out!

 www.thesuburban.com (Pg. 44)

 

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Exiles in the news AGAIN – Season 1 Wrap up

People said it couldn’t be done and yet we did it.  Rugby was indeed brought back to the NDG community with the creation of the MONTREAL EXILES RFC this past summer.  With great community support, the Exiles have yet again been written about by columnist Noah Sidel in the November 8th, 2011 issue of the NDG FREE PRESS.  Check it out!

http://www.ndgfreepress.com/pdf/FP-Nov-8-2011.pdf (pg. 25)

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Inaugural John Jones Memorial 7s Rugby Tournament

On Saturday, October 1st, the MONTREAL EXILES RFC participated in the inaugural John Jones Memorial 7s rugby tournament.  Several players of the newly founded Exiles knew John personally and the Exiles as a whole felt it to be very important to enter the tournament to honour his memory and legacy.

Additionally, the tournament was established in order to raise money for the John Jones Memorial Scholarship which is destined for a rugby player wishing to pursue his/her post-secondary education, and as such, fit very well in the Exiles’ desire to encourage & promote the growth of youth rugby.

Still banged up from the post-season and with several players out of town, the Exiles had quite a mix of young & old, experienced & inexperienced, and fit & unfit players.  The round robin was unkind to the Exiles with loses of 19-31 against the Lanark squad & 7-28 against the Montreal Irish.  Making the playoffs nonetheless, the Exiles did lose again 10-17 but did so to the eventual Plate Winners from Brock.  Regardless, all was not lost as the Exiles were still eligible to compete in the Bowl Finals against les Nomades de Laval where the Exiles were victorious in a 7s rugby boat race to bring home the Bowl Championship silverware in the Exiles’ inaugural season.

Montreal Exiles RFC win the Bowl Finals at the inaugural John Jones Memorial 7s Rugby Tournament - Exiles 4 Laval 3

The Exiles would like to extend thanks to all involved – especially the Montreal Irish RFC & the St Lambert Locks RFC – for the planning and organization of the inaugural John Jones Memorial 7s and look forward to next year’s memorial tournament to defend our title.

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Exiles Represent Provincially

The MONTREAL EXILES RFC would like to recognize all Exiles members who have been part of the Quebec Caribou Rugby Programs and represented the province of Quebec this past season.

At the senior level, Telly Loukas played fixtures with the Quebec Caribou against Nova Scotia & New Brunswick.

At the U18 level, Cameron Chaput & Jesse Mikelberg represented Quebec at the National Junior Festival in Calgary.

At the U16 level, Kyle Brunet, Brandin Donnelly, Chayse Moore, Fred Perron, Jaelen Sampson, & Karl Villegas played fixtures against Brentwood, a traveling Welsh school side & Eastern Ontario.  Senior Exiles member, Alex Karen also acted as a part-time Coach with the U16 Caribou program.

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Exiles Semifinals

On Saturday, September 17th the MONTREAL EXILES RFC played their semifinal game against crosstown rivals the Westmount Ravens.  The Ravens had beaten the Exiles twice during regular season play so both teams were geared up for a big grudge match.  The Exiles came out hard, strong and fast right from the kickoff going up 8-0 very quickly with a penalty kick and an unconverted try from Jamie Henderson.  The try came when Jamie picked off a pass from the Westmount inside to outside centre to score.  The Ravens were visibly shaken but able to pull things together and tie up the game with 10 minuted left in the half.  Going into halftime the Exiles were pressuring the Westmount try line, however after a string of unlucky events, it was the Ravens who managed to score ending the half 15-8 in Westmount’s favour.

Down by seven points, the Exiles forwards played their hearts out winning all their own and often stealing scrum and lineout ball, however the Exiles were simply unable to capitalize.  The Exiles were unwilling to give up and it was only an unlucky bounce and a slight overlap which allowed for Westmount to score two more second half tries.  Notwithstanding, with eighteen minutes remaining the Exiles were relentless in their attack and finally penetrated the Westmount defence to get into the try zone.  Unfortunately, in a haste to gain better field position for the convert, the TINY try zone was overshot before the ball could be touched down.  Even then, the Exiles did not give up and led again by strong forward play, attacked the Westmount try line over and over again.

Nevertheless, in the end, it was simply not meant to be the Exiles’ day.  All played hard.  All played well.  All bled Exiles red.  But in the end, it was Westmount who won 27-8.  A neighbouring-borough rivalry has been born…between the oldest Quebec rugby club and the newest Quebec rugby club!

2011 Semifinal Game - Exiles 8 Westmount 27

SCORING:

- Jamie Henderson (8 pts; 1 try; 1 penalty kick)

Man of the Match: Alfredo Demartino

THE INAUGURAL MONTREAL EXILES RFC SEASON HAS FINISHED.  WE DID IT & WE MADE RUGBY IN NDG HAPPEN.  SEE YOU ALL NEXT YEAR!

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Exiles Quarterfinals

On Saturday, September 10th the MONTREAL EXILES RFC kicked off the post-season with a quarterfinal game against the sixth ranked Nomades de Laval.  The Exiles played a very strong first half scoring a penalty kick and a converted try to Laval’s lone converted try to go into halftime leading 10-7.  The Exiles’ try came about from hard work by the forwards who executed excellent pod work off of a penalty in Laval’s 22 which ultimately led to Alfredo Demartino scoring his first try of the season.  The half did not end easily for the Exiles however, as Laval put on immense pressure in the last 10 minutes of the half, only to be thwarted by the superior Exiles goal-line defence.

The second half saw some truly champagne rugby played as the Exiles were able to score two more tries & a penalty kick and keep laval out of any scoring position.  The first try of the second half came about after almost the entire 15-man Exiles roster touched the ball during a multi-phase Exiles attack ending with Telly Loukas also scoring his first try of the season.  Shortly after, Mat Garston was able to round out the scoring by running the ball into the try zone after the Exiles forwards managed to steal the ball off of a Laval scrum.  The game ended with a score of 23-7 in favour of the Exiles who will now meet the division leading Westmount Ravens in the semifinals this upcoming Saturday, September 17th at 3PM at Confederation Park.

SCORING:

- Alfredo Demartino (5 pts; 1 try)
- Telly Loukas (5pts; 1 try)
- Mat Garston (5pts; 1 try)
- Jamie Henderson (8 pts; 1 conversion; 2 penalty kicks)

Man of the Match: Telly Loukas

2011 Quarterfinal Game - Exiles 23 Laval 7

Following the game, the Exiles also had their annual raffle draw fundraiser with Andrew Arpin – bar staff from our sponsor bar Ye Olde Orchard – winning the Montreal Alouettes football tickets grand prize.  Special mention goes out to junior Exiles player Kyle Brunet who fundraised $130 & senior Exiles player William Scott who fundraised $200.  At present, the raffle has been able to fundraise over $800 to continue to promote rugby in the NDG area and help support our youth rugby players.

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