2016 Canada Cup: Quebec advances to semis with win over Manitoba Silver

By Kevin Hirschfield, Special to Football Canada

Photo credit: Mike Lukyn

Team Quebec began their quest for a second consecutive Canada Cup title and fifth title in the last six years Saturday night in Winnipeg with a 52-0 win over Manitoba Silver.

But coach Marco Iadeluca said things will need to be better offensively if his team wants to even think about another championship.

“Our execution was kinda poor tonight, ” said Iadeluca. “I think we counted 10 busts on 40 plays, so we need to be much better on offence.”

Quebec opened the scoring with a Grégoire Martin 2-yard touchdown run and added a kickoff single and an Antoine Couture field goal to take an 11-0 lead after a quarter.

The floodgates opened in the second as Quebec got a 43-yard receiving touchdown from Carl Chabot, two more field goals from Couture, a 34-yard interception return for a touchdown from defensive back Christopher Cyril, and a 26-yard touchdown run from Martin to take a 38-0 lead.

Kevin Mitale and William Marchand caught touchdowns in the fourth quarter to complete the scoring for the Quebecers.

Manitoba Silver is composed of mainly players from Thunder Bay and nine players from Manitoba and felt they made Quebec work.

“We demonstrated tonight that this was not a cakewalk for Quebec,” said Manitoba Silver coach Rolf Waffler. “Though the score was large, they had to fight for it.”

Quebec has owned the decade in this tournament, winning gold in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2015, silver in 2010 and bronze in 2014.

But the coach says his team can’t worry about past results.

“What we try to tell the team is to create their own identity and create their own history,” said Iadeluca. “What happened last year, we can’t go off what happened last year. This is the 2016 team and we need to create our own thing.”

Alberta awaits Quebec in Tuesday’s semifinal round while Manitoba Silver plays Nova Scotia on the consolation side.

This post is also available in: French