from World Rugby
World Rugby today confirmed details for the Pacific Four Series 2023, the annual cross-regional tournament contested by Australia, Canada, New Zealand and USA.
The Thunder Indigenous Rugby program is touring to NZ in August, taking a U18 boys and a U18 girls team. Last year in August they had a successful tour to California, entering the LA 7s Invitational, the tour review is on their website.
It was Canada’s 2nd best performance this year, but it’s not enough to escape the relegation tournament looming with only 4 tournaments left to make a difference. Canada finished in a 11th/12th place tie with Uruguay so they didn’t gain any ground on the team holding on to the last safe spot in the series. Uruguay remain in 11th place with 29 points, Canada are 10 points behind in 14th place. Spain were the winner in this tournament, claiming 10th spot and 7 series points, they’re now in 12th spot in the series, only 4 points back of Uruguay. Kenya fell further off the pace finishing in 15th/16th spot and gaining only 1 series point, but they remain ahead of Canada in 13th place with 22 points. Japan continue to occupy the immediate relegation spot in 15th place with 8 points.
Week 2 kicked off on Friday with Seattle claiming their second win of the season. We’ve listed the Canadian players in the rosters for week 1 and 2. We’ll add the rosters for Sunday when they become available.
Rugby Canada finally released the roster for the Maple Leaf squad at the LA 7s Invitational. Two players, Anton Ngongo and Brennig Prevost, are from the senior squad. Callum Botchar, rumoured to be going to Taranaki for XVs later this year, is in the squad. Pride players Max Stewart, AJ Kosempel, Zephyr Melnyk are in the roster as well as CW winger Jordan Ng and Ravens wing Cole Keffer. JBAA’s Mostyn Findlay is on the team as well as UBC’s Jared Andrews-Almack and UVic’s Ethan Hager. The only player who hasn’t played in the BC Premier is Christian Coppin from Upright Rogues in Ontario.
The BCRU has cancelled all games in the province due to weather. It’s seen as a heavy handed decision by some who were prepared to go ahead with their matches, some fields were open. UBC had their field open and handled similar situations during the University Championships in November/December.
Rugby Canada announced their selections for the 2022 Rugby Canada Hall of Fame, that media release is below. One of the their selections was the 1991 men’s World Cup team. That team was inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame in 2018 and for the occasion a 36 page tribute booklet was produced. We have a copy on our server in .pdf format – the link is posted below.
Rugby 7s Funding by Own the Podium
In the Tokyo quinquennial the women’s rugby 7s program and Rugby Canada received $10,487,500 in funding from Own the Podium. This was due to the hard work put in by the 2016 Olympic team who won Bronze under the coaching of John Tait. Under the Paris triennial they are no longer listed under Summer Sport Funding, they’ve been moved to the Team Sport Strategy category with the note, “team sports considered to be medal potential for 2024 are included under the Summer Sport Funding category”. They are now listed alongside the men’s program. They’ll receive $1,050,000 in funding for 2022-23. The men’s program will receive $575,000, an improvement over the $130,000 they received in the Tokyo quinquennial.
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It was an interesting match that changed abruptly in the second half when subs were made. Canada Red were ahead 26-0 at the half and looked to be on their way to a rout but in the second half Canada Black fired back and were on the ascendancy when the final whistle blew. The final result according to our tally was 38-29, Canada Red winning the first half 26-0 but Canada Black winning the second half 29-12.