Ian Kennedy
Special to the Record
Chelsea Llewellyn hadn’t played rugby for four years, but last Saturday she laced up her boots to join some of her former G.P. Vanier teammates and help power the Comox Valley Kickers women's team to its biggest win of the season. Llewellyn scored a record-setting five tries as the Kickers romped over the visiting Velox Valhallians 67-19.
A player of enormous talent, athleticism and graceful running, Llewellyn – who played for Canada at the U19 level and B.C. at the senior level – began in the centre for the Kickers and scored her first try near the end of the first half. In the second stanza, playing both centre and scrum-half, she ran in another four tallies, capping a 25-point afternoon.
“I have been away from the Valley playing at UVic for five years and then I was completing my Sea King helicopter training with the military – winning my wings in November. When I recently came home for a couple of months before reporting to my first posting in Victoria, some of my former teammates from Vanier days asked me to come out for a game with the Kickers,” says Llewellyn. “It was great to be back on the field.”
Asked which of her tries she thought best, she offered that the one she took while playing scrum-half was the cream of the crop. “ I don’t think there were a single pair of eyes on me when I took the quick tap penalty and ran in. It’s always nice to get one over on the opposition with a bit of quick thinking.”
Not to be outdone, Kicker fly-half Paula Moore ran in a hat trick of tries and added six conversions for a 27-point afternoon – in itself no mean feat. Lock Andrea Moore, hook Lindsay Mallette, wing Michelle Hamilton and delighted prop Ona Thorington added single tries.
“It was a wonderful day for the Kicker women,” said acting coach Colin Chappell. “For our forwards to have a day like that when they had lots of running and lots of 'go-forward' ball will give them a real boost of confidence.”