The Dauphin Mavericks opened the Rugby Manitoba season with a pair of wins in Winnipeg, Saturday.

In the first game of a doubleheader, the Mavericks scored a 15-5 win over the Winnipeg Wasps, followed by a dominating 60-0 victory over the Winnipeg Assassins.

Mavericks player-coach Codi Harrigan said the team played well.

“They’ve been showing up for practice. We’re running our systems and we tries some guys in new spots this year and it went over really well,” he said.

The team began practicing in early May, getting 15 to 18 players out.

But the team had been running indoors throughout the winter, which has helped with their conditioning.

Harrigan said they went to Winnipeg with 17 players, giving them two substitutes to utilize, which worked out really well.

Opening with a pair of wins is big for the program, which is now in its second season of playing in the Rugby Manitoba’s M League.

“You always want to start off with a bang and I think that’s a really good start to the season. The guys are fired up, for sure,” Harrigan said.

The team, Harrigan said, came out strong and deserved the two wins.

“The Assassins came out in the second half with their Div. 1 team and we still shut them out and we still scored on them,” he said. “We still kept them at bay. We didn’t even let them into our zone to score. That just goes to show how well we’re working together as a team and everybody has taken to the system well.”

Working on their conditioning early was a key factor to the team’s strong start.

“The referee in our games was just surprised at how well that we’ve developed since last year. And he said that we could definitely be taking on some Div. 1 teams,” Harrigan said.

Rugby Manitoba moved to three divisions this year, with two premier divisions, as well as the M League in which the Mavericks play.

But in speaking with Patrick Ryan, executive director of Rugby Manitoba, Harrigan learned one team has potentially folded.

“So really, the schedule is still up in the air and he hopes to have that nailed down by the end of this week for us. We’ve had some dates changing and we’re really flying by the seat of our pants right now,” he said.