Make Mine A Double: TSS Rovers out to make more League1 BC history in Men’s Championship game

It’s been quite the whirlwind first season in charge of TSS Rovers for head coach Brendan Teeling, and one that can now end with his side becoming the first two-time League1 BC champions and the first team to do the regular season and postseason double.

The amiable Irishman was thrown into deep end in May when he took his team over to Vancouver Island to take on CPL side Pacific FC in the first round of the Canadian Championship. TSS were mere seconds away from knocking out a professional side for the second straight year before Pacific tied things up at the death and the Rovers lost the subsequent penalty shoot-out.

Although he only officially took charge of TSS in April, Teeling was part of the coaching staff for the team last season during their historic Canadian Championship run. For your very first match in charge, and the first game of the entire season, to be a cup game against higher opposition, was a baptism of fire for sure, but one that gave Teeling and his players another taste of the pro game and all the impetus and motivation they needed for the 2024 League1 BC season ahead.

TSS’ goals were pretty straightforward enough – win the regular season title, thus securing a third straight Canadian Championship berth in 2025, then go on and win the playoffs.

Three straight wins to start their league campaign, and a six match unbeaten run to begin the season, saw the Rovers sitting pretty at the top of the standings. There were a few wobbles along the way, but it set them up nicely to control their own fate all season. That fate was secured on July 14 in Kamloops when TSS came away with a 4-2 win over Rivers, a victory that saw them achieve their first two goals – their first regular season title and a spot in next year’s Canadian Championship.

“Yeah, job done in that regard,” Teeling told AFTN. “I feel really, really happy. Delighted for the lads. It was nice to have that out of the way and then we could move on to playoffs.

“It seems so far away when we played that Canadian Championship game. This was always the goal, to get back there next year. We’ve achieved that, but we still want to win the playoffs.”

First up for TSS in the postseason were Harbourside FC in the semi-finals, a team making their playoff debut. The Nanaimo side had finished the season strongly, securing 4th in the standings, and if they hadn’t thrown away a two-goal lead in their final match of the season, they could have finished third, leaving the Rovers to face the Whitecaps instead.

Harbourside headed to Swangard Stadium last Friday full of confidence, having dispatched an out of sorts looking Rovers side 3-0 in Nanaimo just six days previously. But missing their talismanic Golden Boot winning striker Billy Bagiopolous, along with a number of second half chances, TSS dispatched them with relative ease in a 4-1 victory thanks to goals from Kian Proctor, Ivan Mejia, Massud Habibullah, and Koji Poon.

It was an important victory for the club, as they were keen not to have any post regular season hangovers, with their eyes very much still on the price of a league and playoff double.

“We needed a reaction after the game last week,” Teeling told us after that semi-final victory. “Credit to them, last week they were better than us. This week, we had a good week of training and it showed.

“We’re excited to try and do the double, so hopefully we can win on Sunday and we can win another trophy to cap of another excellent season for the club.”

The team standing in their way to a historic double is Altitude FC. The North Vancouver side have been the in-form team in the second half of the season, but not only did they fail to take a point off TSS during the regular season, they failed to even score a goal, going down to a 6-0 defeat at Swangard in May and a 1-0 loss at home in July.

TSS will go into the championship game as favourites, but they know they’ll have to work extremely hard to finish off their successful season in style.

“We’ll certainly not be taking anything for granted on Sunday,” Teeling said. “We know how motivated they’ll be to make amends for those previous results, but we’ll be motivated too. We’ve got a chance to make history and we’re expecting a right battle out there, but we’ll fight till the very end and so will they. It should be a cracker.”

Altitude and TSS Rovers play for the 2024 League1 BC Championship at Swangard Stadium on Sunday. The game is set to kick off at 4pm. Tickets are available HERE, but if you can’t make it along, AFTN will have the commentary for both the men’s and women’s Championship game on the League’s YouTube channel.