London, ON – The Mustangs opened the 2024 season with a dominant 46-3 win over the RMC Paladins on Friday afternoon.

Western spread out the offence with eight members of the roster scoring tries in the win.

"Happy with the win, not necessarily happy with the way we played today," said Mustangs Head Coach Ian McLeod "I think we have a higher ceiling than that and we just didn't get there today but you never critique a win so we'll take it and be happy,"

Western scored early and often in the match while only allowing the penalty conversion in the open 15 minutes, which ended up being the only points RMC was able to put on the board.

"We did great today, the whole game plan today was just to continue to move forward. If that's on defence it means we are getting off the line and hitting them, if that's on offence then we're going through them and getting that quick ball off of it," said Colin Rolph

The Mustangs are coming in to this season, looking to improve on their 1-4-1 record last year.

"We've got 19 new guys on the roster this year which included a couple on the field today which was great," said McLeod "The potential of those young guys is really good mixed with some great senior guys who are doing a great job bringing them along, really happy with our makeup but just think we need to get back to work cleaning things up in practice this week,"

KEY MUSTANGS STATS

Tries:
Thomas Belcher, Colin Rolph, Sawyer Adams, Gavin Schroeder, Presley Bosa, Kohl Kletke, Simon Ofiara, Murray Watt

Conversions:
Jack Bryan (3)

NEXT GAME
Western will head out on the road next weekend, taking on the Laurier Golden Hawks on Sunday, Sept. 15 for a 3:30 pm start.

"Laurier is big for us, it's Ian's old school and it's always a battle with them," said Rolph "I know we will bring the intensity and I'm looking forward to it,"