[ed. our normal predictions article with rosters will publish every Friday.]
Week 1 of the 2022-23 rugby season is coming up this Saturday. Yes, once again, Saturday is a rugby day in BC.
The Pacific Pride Academy start up another season in the BC Premier, a few of the players (Reimer, Purdey, Flesch, ??) may only be here in the fall as they’ll likely go to MLR training camps in the spring.
Coach Kevin Rouet has named his 32 player roster going to NZ for the World Cup. One of the most notable omissions is Pam Buisa, a player who was making headlines during the UK tour of November 2021 under coach Sandro Fiorino. She came off the disappointing Olympic 7s performance that summer but shone as an impact player in the XVs tour that fall. That earned her a starting flanker role in the June 2022 tour to NZ where she started at both blindside and openside over the three games against USA, Australia and NZ. She had a quiet tournament and in the July home tests against Italy and Wales, coach Rouet went with Fabiola Forteza, Karen Paquin, Courtney Holtkamp, Sara Svoboda, Gabrielle Senft in the flanker roles. He must have liked what he saw as all those players made the cut, Buisa is on the non-travelling reserves.
LA 7s Invitational
The LA 7s invitational wrapped up last weekend and some kudos to Canadian youth teams who stood out. The Celtic Barbarians won the Girls U18 division, MacDowell Rugby won the Boys U16 division and came 3rd in the Boys U18 and Thunder Indigenous Rugby won the Plate in the Boys U18 division.
Canada grew into the game as Wales put them under pressure early and took an early 3-0 lead. Canada took over the rest of the match except for the last 10 minutes as substitutions seemed to interupt Canada’s dominance and Wales started to press again. The Canadian defence held firm and the final was 31-3.
It’s a good thing relegation was off the table for this season with Great Britain absorbing England, Wales, Scotland next season. Japan would have been relegated and then the tie breaking rules would have been brought into play as Canada and Wales finished in the second relegation position, both tied with 34 points.
It’s time for a quick reflection on where we are, rugby-wise, in BC and Canada as the summer of 2022 comes to a close.
The bad news is Canada lost and finished 3rd behind Uruguay and Zimbabwe, the good news is they won the second half 21-12.
There were four Canadians drafted in Round 1, Cali Martinez went as 3rd pick to DC, Seth Purdey went to Atlanta as 4th pick, Owain Ruttan was 5th pick by Toronto and Ethan Hager went 8th pick to Dallas.
The BC Bears won the Shield Final over Team Germany 21-7 to finish 12th in the tournament. Perhaps not the ranking they were expecting going into the tournament but as their tournament description states, “This programs goal is to provide a competition pathway for BC players to gain experience and showcase themselves towards National team selections.”