Local rugby player Lucy Cropley has returned from the Canadian Rugby Championships where she played on Alberta’s U19 travelling team.
Teams from Alberta, Nova Scotia, Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec all attended the event in Toronto that ran from July 20 to 26. Cropley was one of 26 players selected for the Alberta team in June this year.
Though the team didn’t excel at the tournament, Cropley says Albertans don’t have the same amount of time to prepare as some other provinces. This year, the team that headed to the championships was only formed at the end of June. Other provinces, such as Ontario, can have teams that are formed in February.
“It was a really good experience,” says Cropley. “They are definitely a bit harder to compete against because they have been practicing and have known each other for a lot longer.”
She says regardless of how they did at the tournament, she was grateful for the opportunity to play on the team.
Cropley has been playing rugby for five years, starting out with the Frank Maddock Warriors.
She says over the years there have been a lot of highs and lows with the sport. Sometimes she has felt discouraged if she hasn’t made a team, even wondering if it was something she still wanted to pursue.
“It’s definitely a sport where you just have to keep trying, keep showing up, and there will be an outcome [based] on how hard you try,” she says.
Cropley didn’t score a spot on Team Alberta on her first try. She says she’s been trying to get on the team for a couple of years, but with every setback she worked hard to learn the lessons that were there. Then, when she tried out for the U19 team, she got it on her first try, ensuring she can play on the team in 2027 as well.
During her time playing rugby, Cropley has played for several teams. During the spring she plays with the Warriors, but during the fall and winter the sport has to be played indoors. As there isn’t an indoor sports centre in Drayton Valley, Cropley plays on an Edmonton team during that time.
Rugby can be played with different numbers of players on the field. There are the sevens, where each team has seven players on the field, and then there are the fifteens. The type of rugby played follows a pattern, says Cropley. In the fall, there are more sevens tournaments, culminating in the Alberta Rugby Championships in January.
Cropley made it onto the Alberta sevens team last January and ended up playing at a tournament in Vancouver in March.
Heading into the spring, there are more games of fifteens played, which is what they played at the recent championships.
Cropley says one of the aspects of rugby that she really enjoys is the camaraderie between the players. She says that at the level she’s playing at, her teammates have a good understanding of the sport and they can work well together.
“It’s not so much about the sport that you’re involved with; it’s more about the community and the friendships and stuff like that,” she says.
Cropley says it’s great to meet people from different areas who have had different life experiences than she has.
From August 2 to 9, Cropley will be at the U18 Canada West Development Camp in Victoria, where she could be selected to play for the U18 Team Canada.
“It should be a really great experience,” says Cropley. “Even if I don’t end up making it further on from that, it’s still great to have that level of coaching, and hang out with the people that are there.”
Right now Cropley is taking a gap year between high school and college so she can upgrade some of her courses, but she is planning to pursue a rugby scholarship when she does go to post-secondary.
