The Dauphin Clippers rugby teams have begun working towards a four-peat as Westman High School Rugby champions.

While some players attended player academies before Christmas, the teams began ramping up workouts about seven weeks ago, holding practices in the high school gym.

“Our numbers were anywhere from five to about 13. And now that basketball is done, we should be 20-plus,” said girls coach Shawn Sarkonak, who said the team is looking good so far. He added there are a number of veterans who will be expected to lead the team this year.

“It’s also a big harvest year for us with graduating players and, of course, the handful of Rotary exchange students. This year’s 15s season, we have four, I believe, so on top of nine to 11 graduating Grade 12s, it’s going to be a big harvest year and rebuilding going into next year,” Sarkonak said.

Being limited to what they can do indoors, the Clippers have been focusing on conditioning for the most part.

“Especially for the new ones coming in, making sure they have the cardio to hold up in a 60-minute game, if they end up having to play that long,” Sarkonak said.

“And just making sure they’re ready, so when we get to go outside, we hit the ground running and get tackling and doing our safe play game prep.”

But for now, the teams are also working on the basics of the game, getting the ball in their hands and getting used to the core skills.

Although hesitant to predict how the Clippers girls will do this season, Sarkonak said there is a lot of experience on this year’s squad.

“We have some quality young athletes that started back with us in the 7s season that will push for a starting spot and looking to join the leadership moving forward,” he said.

“With this year’s  Grade 11s taking the reigns heading into the fall, I’m confident in the fact that we’ll have a lot of skill. And, with the ones that are away on the trip in Wales and England, it will give us that much more of a jump when the season gets going.

“So you’re always optimistic, but you don’t want to be overly confident either. But we’re definitely chasing that four-peat.”

Boys coach Aaron Miner said the Clippers are looking good so far.

“We have a large group of Grade 12s this year. A few Grade 11s and then another huge group of Grade 9 and 10s. So the plan is to put two teams into the league this year, because we have so many,” he said.

“We don’t want to lose any kids for future years, so we want to find a place for all of them to play.”

The coaching staffs for the two teams will be announced after the annual John Keogh Tournament in Brandon, later this month.

Coaches will include Miner, Mark Symchych, Gerald Lopez and Mike Penner.

Players from both teams were recently on the trip to England and Wales as part of the Parkland Pirates program, where they played against youth teams, before returning home on Sunday.

“We came over here and we’ve seen what we needed to see. We learned a lot. We were taught a lot of lessons. School of hard knocks, we’ll call it,” Miner said, adding they won one game against a team out of London and were taught a lesson in rugby by an academy school that was part of the Bristol Bears program.

They ended the tour with a game against Cardiff, which Miner said was the most amazing match he’s ever seen.

The trip to the United Kingdom will benefit both teams when the season begins.

“By the time we hit our first game after the Keogh, we should be midseason stride. We’ve been practicing since January now, with this group and we feel as if we’re way ahead of the game,” Miner said.

“We came out with very limited injuries after the tour here in Europe. We’ll be heading into the season fully healed, fully ready to go with two full squads of very knowledgeable boys.”

Miner expects to not only win the league for a fourth straight time, but he expects to face Winnipeg’s perennial powerhouse St. Paul’s Crusaders in the provincial final.

“Our goal is to meet St. Paul’s in the final. I hate to put the cart before the horse, but our dream matchup will be nothing less than St. Paul’s for the gold medal this year,” he said.