GUELPH, Ont. - The Guelph Gryphons knew heading into Saturday afternoon that their task was going to be a big one when they welcomed the Queen's Gaels to Varsity Field.

In their first two games this season, the Gaels have stream rolled their way to victories of 135-0 and 100-0. And although the Gryphons were able to slow that scoring pace of Queens down, it was not enough in a 54-19 defeat.

"Queens is really good at protecting that ball and hanging on to it so we had to play a lot more defence today then we probably have since the national gold medal game last year," said Gryphon's Head Coach Colette McAuley. "It's a learning curve, and again it's just about effort and defensive fitness. We need to be able to defend after our fifth, six phase and we haven't done that a lot."

After rolling to a 49-12 win at McMaster in their season opener, the Gryphons once again got off to a good start in their home opener. Just five minutes into the match Emilie Belanger put Guelph on the board with an early try, and after Julia Schell knocked through the convert the Gryphons had a 7-0 advantage. For a good majority of the first quarter of the game, Guelph was standing toe-to-toe with the top-notch Gaels offence.

"I was proud of the defensive effort the girls put in for the first twenty minutes," McAuley said. "Then we started to show some gaps and weaknesses in our defence that we are going to have to fix."

It was in the 19' minute when the Gaels managed to break through scoring an unconverted try and trimming the Guelph lead to 7-5. Queen's then used the next twenty minutes until halftime to cash in two more tries and a penalty kick giving them a 22-7 lead at the break. Once the second half got underway, the Gaels quickly implemented their pace again with a try increasing their lead to 29-7. Despite being stuck by 22 and on the wrong end of a 29-0 run, the Gryphons began to bare down and work their way back into the contest.

A try from Hannah Beaumont in the 47' minute and another from Sidney Brown in the 55' minute quickly got the home team fired up again, all while trimming the deficit to 29-19. Unfortunately for the Gryphons that would be as close as they were able to get.

Over the final twenty minutes of the match, Queen's tallied three more tries and two penalty kicks to round out a 54-19 win over Guelph. With the loss, the Gryphons drop to 1-1 on the season, but McAuley still felt there were plenty of positives to take away from the defeat. "I'm happy with the continuity between the backs and the forwards," she said. "It doesn't matter who is first, second or third receiver, or who is stacked behind. We were able to continue to pass, catch, throw around the ball, play some exciting rugby and exciting rugby for the fans."

"It makes them better rugby player to be able to see the field and see where they can attack." The Gryphons will return to Varsity Field on September 21st looking to get back into the win column against the Western Mustangs.