In rugby, sometimes a few lucky bounces is all it takes.

The Queen’s Gaels won their first Ontario University Athletics men’s rugby title since 2001 on Saturday, after a 23-19 come-from-behind victory over the Western Mustangs.

It was the second time this season the Gaels narrowly escaped with a victory against Western after they beat the Mustangs 13-12 at Western’s Homecoming in October.

“Five points separated us in the whole season and that’s really just a couple bounces here and there,” Mustangs head coach Tony Roes said. “It really could have gone either way.”

The Mustangs went into halftime on Saturday with a 14-10 lead after first half tries from Marcus Mitchell and Conor Trainor. Matthew Barrett converted both Mustang tallies, while Scott Kyle and Zach Pancer responded with trys for the Gaels.

“Western got on us early,” Gaels head coach Peter Huigenbos said. “They were well prepared and you could tell they really wanted it.”

The Mustangs took a considerable 19-10 lead after fullback Matthew McLeod scored a try early in the second half. It was the first time Queen’s had been down by more than a try since 2007.

“Until that point, we hadn’t played comeback rugby for two years. It was a spot that the guys just haven’t been in before,” Huigenbos said.

The unfamiliar circumstances hardly bothered the Gaels as they scored three times in the next 10 minutes with a penalty goal from Ryan Kruyne and trys from Patrick Richardson and Chris Barrett to seal the victory.

“It would have been easy for the guys to just fold,” Huigenbos said. “I was really proud to watch them rise to the occasion like that.”

The Gaels scored most of their points after exploiting Western’s defence with strong counter-attacks on Mustang kicks that did not find touch. Roes was unhappy with his team’s kicking game on the day.

“We definitely made their fullback Mike Wong look good,” Roes said. “Some of our kicks weren’t great and in some cases our chase wasn’t even existent. A kick’s only as good as its chase and we weren’t really doing either as well as we could.”

Despite twice holding nine-point leads, the Mustangs could not put the stingy Gaels away.

“A lot of our guys feel that we controlled our destiny in that game,” Roes said. “A couple little lapses and some strong defence by Queen’s in the final five minutes of the game was the difference.”

The Gaels defence had to be stout as the Mustangs threw everything they had at the Gaels line, trying to win the game in the dying minutes. The Mustangs chose to rumble the ball directly at the Gaels defence with their forward pack, instead of sending the ball out wide and trying to run a play with their backs.

“We wanted to try to grind it in with our forwards,” Mitchell said. “It may have been predictable and we could have used some decisiveness in attack. At the end of the day we made a choice —they don’t always work out.”

Roes supported his squad’s decision making late in the game.

“Hindsight is always perfect — when you’re looking back at it maybe we should have spun it wide,” Roes said. “I don’t want to question the decisions the guys made. We just couldn’t get it across and that’s it.”

The end of the season sees the Mustangs lose many of the key players who helped engineer their recent string of success. The team has won three OUA silver and two bronze medals over the past five years.

“I’ve made some of my best friends on this team — leaving this team is tough,” Mitchell said. “I’d rather be an alumni here than playing anywhere else.”