When Rugby Canada want to say something informally, they usually bring in Neil Davidson. Hopefully that is the case with this article published on September 20th by major news outlets that run Canadian Press articles.
While many countries have released their test fixtures for the upcoming Autumn Tours, in Canada we’re left guessing and piecing together scraps of information from other sources.
from UBC Media
VANCOUVER The UBC Thunderbirds fell in their home opener 30-14 to the University of Victoria Vikes at the Gerald McGavin UBC Rugby Centre in the first leg of the historic Wightman Boot series between the longstanding provincial rivals.
from TWU Media
LANGLEY, B.C. It was a massive 37-26 victory over Pacific Pride for Trinity Western at the Willoughby Community Park on Saturday. Tamilore Awonusi (Dublin, Ireland) led the Spartans with two tries while Matthew Willemse (Pietermaritzburg, South Africa) converted on all four TWU tries to go with three penalties for a team-high 17 points.
Again a brief reminder of the regional aspect of the Premier matches, on the Island they’re playing for the Barnard Cup (CW, JBAA, Westshore) which was first awarded in 1911, the Academies/Universities are playing for the Coastal Cup (UBC, UVic, TWU, Pride), the Mainland teams are doing their thing, there was a Mainland Cup, but some teams are treating the 6 week regional as a Premier warm-up season.
It’s good to see a combined Island/Mainland BC club championship at the youth level return this year. As the BCRU media release mentioned, it was 3 years ago when the last one was held. Last year the Mainland and Island held separate championships as COVID rules were just starting to loosen.
A reader sent in a request to put together Damian McGrath’s 7s coaching record in Canada and compare it to the current coach, Henry Paul. We didn’t go down to the match by match results but used a more accessible tournament points record and end of year standings and points.
Round 5 of the Rugby Championship kicks off early Thursday morning on the west coast, 2:40am PT with Australia v NZ. The Argentina v South Africa games is on Saturday at 12pm PT. Both games are streamed live on TSN.
From TWU Media
VICTORIA The Trinity Western men’s rugby team lost a nail-biting season-opening match against the University of Victoria, as the Vikes slotted a penalty at the death to secure a 42-39 win at Wallace Field.
from Vikes Media
VICTORIA The University of Victoria men’s rugby team completed the second-half comeback to defeat Trinity Western University, 42-39, Sept. 10 at Wallace Field.