We have some great photographers in BC who post on social media, mostly Instagram and Facebook. We feature 6 this weekend. If you know of other photographers on social media who cover rugby, send us the link to their account, either in the comments below or email editor@bcrugbynews.com
After two early season losses the Ravens looked like world beaters for the first 20 minutes of this game hopefully bringing a smile to Coach Taylor’s face. Constant possession, long uninterrupted phases of play with quick hands and lots of support led to two tries by the quarter. Wing Cole Keffer scooped up a blocked Caps kick, looked to pass but when a Caps player shot the gap he headed straight north on a hard cut and Joe Locke from Ethan Berry dotted down. A strong run from #10 Andrew Coe put Hamish Janes in at 20 minutes capping the early dominance and bringing the score to 12-0.
Both the men’s and women’s University championship are on the horizon. The women are first with UBC hosting the championship between October 29th and November 2nd. They are defending champions but have been beaten twice by UVic in the CanWest conference. They currently sit in 5th place in the national rankings, UVic are ranked 3rd with Queen’s and Laval sitting at #1 and #2.
It’s Week 3 of the BC Premier and we see some big names returning to play in the Canadian Winter League, aka BC Premier. Just at #10 we have national team players Cooper Coats, Andrew Coe, Mark Balaski, Ethan Turner all starting this weekend. Lucas Rumball returns to the BC Premier after many seasons away, he’ll be starting as Ravens openside flanker.
This was information already known to the rugby community but Rugby Canada have made it official with an announcement and some more details. Hopefully it will be a chance for some new players to get evaluated at the international level. The coach’s team selections will give some insight on whether his actions match his words, “also giving opportunities to a few players who weren’t part of the Pacific Nations Cup but could play a key role in our World Cup campaign”. We’ll also be keeping an eye on the assistant coaching situation for the November tour as we’ve heard some rumours about changes there.
There are four matches in the men’s Premier this weekend, Week 3. The UBC vs UVic Premier match is also a National University Qualifier and part of the Wightman Boot competition between the two universities. The Pacific Pride are playing an exhibition against Seattle. The women’s Premier kicks off with two matches, there was supposed to be three but the Ravens v Thunderbirds match has been marked as cancelled. The Ravens apparently haven’t been able to put together a women’s Premier team at the time of writing. We’ll have our predictions article out tomorrow when we have the rosters for the weekend. The current Week 2 standings are posted below.
Now that Canada are back in the men’s World Cup there’s more interest in the details. This will be the first World Cup to have 24 teams, 6 pools of 4 teams and a knockout round of 16. The top 2 teams from each pool will advance to the round of 16 plus the 4 best 3rd place finishers. That means that some teams with only 1 win in the pool round may advance to the round of 16. The countries are placed in 4 bands depending on their ranking at draw time, Band 1 will be rankings 1 to 6, Band 2 are ranked 7 to 12, Band 3 are ranked 13 to 18 and Band 4 are ranked 19 to 24. Canada are ranked 24th and will be in Band 4.
The World Cup is over, Canadian rugby had its brief moment in the sun but now what? How to build on that momentum? That’s the question, there is no simple answer presented in this article but we’ll start with the post-match interview with coach Kevin Rouet and Alex Tessier. Below you will find the video, the summary of the interview, the transcript and a google trend graph that shows the spike that “women’s rugby” enjoyed over the past week.
On a cool windy day at Jericho that felt more like rugby weather the home side put in a hard shift of rugby but just fell short against a talented Westshore team.
