The Western Mustangs men's rugby team opened up their season in near perfection on Saturday, putting together a solid defensive effort and riding a second-half offensive outburst to a 27-0 victory over the Brock Badgers in St. Catharines.
 
The Mustangs appear to be making a habit of opening the season with a dominant win. This year is the second year in a row that Western has opened the season with a win of 25 points or more after the team kicked off last season with a 40-3 victory over the Waterloo Warriors. In fact, in the past ten years, the Mustangs have gone 10-0 on opening day while outscoring their opponents by a total of 414-26.
 
Justin Chan opened up the scoring for the Mustangs in the second half, scoring a try to put Western up 5-0 at 42:00 before Mike Turnbull added a conversion kick to make it 7-0. From there, third-year player Ade Ojo took the reigns for Western, scoring two tries to record more than a third of the team's final 27 points. Turnbull ensured that his teammate's effort wouldn't go to waste, converting on Ojo's first try and adding a penalty goal for good measure.
 
Also scoring for the Mustangs was first-year player Jerry McCarty, who ran the fourth try of the game and his first ever as a Mustang at 79:50. McCarty was one of five players making their debut for the Mustangs rugby program as Matthew Alport, Alex Cunliffe, Peter Gray, and Jarell Williams were all getting their first taste of OUA rugby action.
 
The Mustangs take to the field again on September 14 in their home opener against Guelph. The Gryphons opened their season on September 6 with a 24-16 victory over the McMaster Marauders and will be looking to avenge a 21-15 loss to the Mustangs in last year's OUA semi-finals.