In more than a decade and a half of Canada West competition, the University of Alberta rugby team may have never seen a playoffs this challenging.

And the coach of the three-time defending conference champs wouldn’t have it any other way.

“There was a quarterfinal game this week in Ontario where the No. 1 seed beat the No. 8 seed 140-5, which is ridiculous, really,” said Matthew Parrish, whose Pandas host the 2015 Canada West rugby championship this weekend at the Ellerslie Rugby Club.

“We just don’t have anything like that and I think it holds us in good stead because we don’t get gimmes and we actually have to learn how to play defence and play under pressure.”

Alberta (seeded No. 2) faces Victoria (3) while Calgary (1) meets Lethbridge (4) in Friday’s semifinals, followed by the gold and bronze medal matches on Sunday. The two finalists qualify for the CIS Championship, Nov. 5-8 in Kingston, Ont., where they will join representatives from the OUA, RSEQ, and AUS conferences.

“I think some of the teams in the other conferences get false senses of security,” Parrish continued, “because they’re coming to the national championships and suddenly, ‘Whoa, teams actually tackle us,’ so I’ve always said that’s been the nice thing about coming out of Canada West.”

Canada West rugby is as competitive as the long-serving Parrish can remember, thanks in large part to the improvement of its B.C.-based teams. In the 2013 regular season, five matches were decided by a margin of 39 or more points. Only two games were decided by more than 20 points last year, and this season the largest margin of victory was 26.

Victoria gave Alberta everything it could handle in the teams’ regular season meeting, last weekend on Vancouver Island, where the Pandas held on to win 34-28.

“We used to be able to go to B.C. and just steamroll them in the forwards,” said Parrish. “We’ve always had what I call Alberta beef and if you dominate the forwards it’s really tough, but now they’ve bulked up and become a bit tougher in that department.

“We’ve still got a little bit of that, we probably had more dominance in that game (last weekend), so I just say to my players, if we can keep exploiting that we can make this easier for ourselves to win.”

With the CIS championship expanding this year to eight from six teams, the Canada West championship takes on a decidedly different look. Previously, only the gold-medal winning team was granted a berth in nationals. Now a semi-final victory is all that’s needed to advance.

“It changes the way I look at selections, because in previous years I’ve maybe thought of it as, ‘I know I’ve got to win the final to get there’, so if a certain player was slightly injured I could rest them … and take my chances on weaker opposition in the semifinal,” said Parrish.

“But not this year. I’m going to be putting out my best squad to make sure we get through (the semifinal).”

Alberta has won the conference title 10 times since 1999.

@SunBrianSwane

brian.swane@sunmedia.ca

U of A TEAMS THIS WEEKEND

PANDAS RUGBY

3-1 conference

4-1 overall

No. 9 in CIS Top 10

Canada West Championship at Ellerslie Rugby Club

FRI– Calgary vs. Lethbridge, 1 p.m.; Alberta vs. Victoria, 3 p.m.

SUN– Bronze medal game, 11 a.m.; Gold medal game, 1 p.m.

GOLDEN BEARS BASKETBALL

0-0 conference

1-4 overall

Golden Bears Invitational Tournament at Saville Community Sports Centre

FRI- Lethbridge vs. Queen’s, 6 p.m.; Alberta vs. UNBC, 8 p.m.

SAT- Lethbridge vs. UNBC, 5 p.m.; Alberta vs. Queen’s, 7 p.m.

GOLDEN BEARS HOCKEY

3-0-1 conference

8-2-2 overall

No. 1 in CIS Top 10

FRI– vs. Mount Royal, 7 p.m. at Clare Drake Arena

SAT– at Mount Royal

PANDAS HOCKEY

2-4-0 conference

7-5-1 overall

No. 9 in CIS Top 10

FRI– at Mount Royal

SAT– vs. Mount Royal, 6 p.m. at Clare Drake Arena

GOLDEN BEARS SOCCER

8-2-0 conference

8-2-0 overall

No. 7 in CIS Top 10

SAT– vs. Saskatchewan, 2 p.m. at Foote Field

SUN– vs. Lethbridge, 2 p.m. at Foote Field

PANDAS SOCCER

6-5-1 conference

10-6-1 overall

SAT– at Thompson Rivers

SUN– at UBC-Okanagan

GOLDEN BEARS FOOTBALL

2-4 conference

2-4 overall

FRI– at Manitoba