Dauphin's Zach Zurba was tackling his way with the best this past weekend. The 16-year-old cracked the Team Manitoba U-18 men's rugby roster as they took part in the Western Canadian Invitational in Edmonton.
"It's definitely a great experience and it was a lot of fun," added Zurba. "It's a really high level of rugby and that was exciting to be a part of."
"I've done a ton of conditioning and working out every day to prepare for this," he added
Zach and the rest of the team played a few games but came up short in all of them. They did compete well and keep the games close, however.
"I don't think we were expecting the level of the other teams," said Zurba. "We gave it our all though, so that's important and we're happy about that. We just have to be better at nailing everything down and we can't make mistakes as we did."
For Zach and everyone else on the team, it's right back into preparation mode as they get set for another big tournament. From March 7-8, the team travels to Vancouver to play in the BC Rugby Festival.
"I think the experience we had in Edmonton will help us in BC," said Zurba. "I know for me, my communication definitely has to be better so I'll be working on that a lot."
Come Vancouver, Zach knows what he has to do to succeed. "I have to leave everything out on the field, I can't take it easy at all," said Zurba.