VANCOUVER – The UBC women's rugby team gets set to host their opening game of the Canada West season with a difficult match up against the ninth-ranked Lethbridge Pronghorns.

The Thunderbirds have a new leader at the helm in Maria Gallo, who moves up from her position of assistant to head coach. During her university career, she won three CIS championships and was named the CIS Most Valuable Player in 2002. Formerly captain of the national seven's team and vice-captain of the national 15's team, Gallo has a huge list of rugby credentials almost as impressive as the line of research she conducts as a postdoctorate fellow in the Kinesiology faculty at UBC.

Gallo takes over a relatively young squad that returns most of its players from last season, which ended with a loss in the Canada West bronze medal game.

To help her cause, she also has a host of new recruits such as Francesca Whiffin and Nicole Drummond, as well as the return of key veterans such as captain Carolyn McEwen, Haley Glendinning – both Canada West all-stars in 2012 - and Catherine Ohler.

The new coach will be without Canada West all-star Megan Hamm who will be redshirting this year due to injury. This is a big blow for the team but expectations and hopes are high.

"We're a more mature team due to the fact that we haven't had a huge turnover," said Gallo. Some of the players should be able to transfer the knowledge they picked up from (former coach) Lesley McKenzie and turn it over to this year."

Gallo has put her own stamp on the team with the introduction of new regimes, such as an improved fitness and nutrition program.

"We also started doing skill assessment which is a process that Rugby Canada emphasizes," said Gallo. "We videotaped all our athletes and looked at them as far as how they catch and pass the ball, how they tackle, how they make decisions in a three-versus-two drill and how they are in a point of contact, in a ruck. The players have been videotaped, they've assessed themselves and we've had one-on-one meetings."

While having three of their four conference games at home this season certainly helps their hopes of making the playoffs for the second year in a row, the Thunderbirds face stern opposition at every turn.

The Pronghorns are first up and they are looking for a change of fortunes having gone through an uncharacteristically disappointing season in 2012. Last year was the first time that Lethbridge had failed to win the conference in seven years, and with a loss to eventual champions Calgary in the regular season ended their streak of 22 consecutive conference wins.

They also have to deal with the loss of a number of key players from the program such as five-time Canada West all-star Brandi van Eeuwen, fly half Laura Murphy-Burke and scrum-half Alex Hendricks.

Last season's meeting between the two teams was won comfortably 30-3 by Lethbridge in Vancouver.

This year's matchup will kick off at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 22 at Wolfson Field