After some hasty early morning field prep made necessary from a scheduling mishap the Nova Scotia Keltics were ready for their home opener versus the much improved Quebec Caribou. Both teams were coming off facing the same Niagara Thunder in their opening matches however with very different results.

The Caribou managed to hold on for a tie with the defending East champions meanwhile several days later the Keltics, although keeping it close to half, eventually falling by a score of 49-5.

With a soggy pitch underfoot the teams traded opening minute penalties from the feet of Fougere and Morlot respectively. The Cariboux would put the first try on the board with one in the corner for Quebec's Tolson. The difficult conversion was wide and that left the Caribou with an early 8 - 3 lead. The Keltic would live and die today by their ability to stop the driving maul. On several occasions they were aptly able to draw Quebec into penalty's for obstruction on their attempts to drive for the line while on others the Caribou were too quick at setting up and adapting which ultimately led to further tries in the first half by Cesari (2) and Chapheau. The Keltics were able to put some further points on the board in the first half, with a pretty kick and chase down by the Keltics outside centre Chris Fougere to bring the half time score to 28-8.

The second half would follow a different script with the Keltics making some tactical substitutions that stabilized the front row and allowed their backline some cleaner possession to work with. The Keltics looked much more dangerous than in the first half as they made several deep forays into Caribou territory with the increased possession. On one of the occasions Flyhalf Dave Burton was again able to use his foot to attack a hole in the Caribou line for the Keltic's second try of the afternoon. It would not be enough as the Caribou added a further try to bring the final to 33-13.

Despite Nova Scotia's second straight loss Keltic coach, Troy Myers, refused to only look at the negatives of a 0-2 record to open the season. "We are in the second game of a 3 year process so we can't get discouraged. We were done in today by our first half performance but managed to show what the squad is capable of in the second half. With a few more "old hands" coming in the second half our set pieces looked much better and helped with our technical issues of the first. We have lessons to be learned from this game for our young guys that we will look to improve on for our next match."

The Keltics would like to thank their supporters that turned out to support the team despite the weather and uncertainty surrounding the game location and secondly the Provincial U-18 team and their associated parents that aided in the preparation of the field for the game.

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