The Premier Rugby Sevens series kicks off this weekend in California. It’s a closed competition that features four teams, the Loonies, Loggerheads, Experts and Headliners. The Loonies have some Canadian coaching staff, the men’s team head coach is Sean White and the women’s assistant coach is Robin McDowell.
U14 Boys
Fraser Valley East defeated Okanagan in the final. Vancouver South claimed 3rd.
The Rugby Canada press release calls it a “clinical performance”, it was anything but against a mediocre Belgian side with 11 uncapped players. Belgium’s recent wins were against Poland, Switzerland and Lithuania. Belgium weren’t even in the European Tier 2 championships this year, the Netherlands beat them out for that honour. This was Canada, trying to cling on to Tier 2 status, playing a Tier 3 rugby nation.
The BCRU refers to the match as BC U19 vs Canada U19 Selects, others refer to it as BC U19 vs Canada U20. It’s likely a combination of U19/U20 players from the Canada U20 camp, which is taking place this week at Shawnigan, vs the BC U19 team. The match is taking place at 1pm today and will be streamed on the BCRU YouTube channel at youtube.com/user/bcrugbyunion
The appointment was announced earlier this month but according to that announcement from BCRU, Newson starts the job this week.
from Westshore RFC
Part-time | Approximately $12,000 | 1-3 year contract | Closes July 10, 2022
The Westshore Womens Team is a high-performing rugby team within the BC Rugby Premier league. The team has a history of excellence with numerous championship titles in recent years. The team has found success by fostering skilled club, provincial, and national representative athletes alike with a common goal to win the league championship.
New York defeated Seattle in the MLR final 30-15. Scoring for New York were Will Tucker, Andy Ellis, Nic Mayhew plus a 7 point penalty try when Seattle pulled down a maul that was crossing the line. Jason Emery kicked a conversion and penalty and Sam Windsor added a drop goal. Seattle scorers were Martin Iosefo and Sam Metenga, Alatimu added a conversion and penalty.
Robin MacDowell has been an extraordinary servant of the game in Canada, both as a player and coach. He’s represented Canada on the World Series, at the Commonwealth Games, he played professionally in Italy and then played at the highest level domestically on a Rugby Canada Super League national championship team and on a NA4 championship team. As a coach he’s been in charge of the Canada U18 7s team, the USPORT 7s team, he’s been key in identifying high performance athletes for the Canada Women’s 7s program, like recent sensation Krissy Scurfield. He was in demand outside of Canada as the head coach of the Mexican women’s 7s team and the Trinidad & Tobago high performance program. He’s coached professionally with the Premier Sevens and Rugby Tens competitions. He also has the MacDowell Rugby Academy which operates in Saskatchewan and BC. He knows the world of high performance 7s and he knows the talent that’s out there. The program is in good hands.
This weekend is the MLR final between New York and Seattle but there’s another battle brewing and it’s not on the field.
In honour of National Indigenous Peoples Day we take a look at the Thunder Rugby program which was formed to introduce rugby to Indigenous youth. The program is led by some notable First Nations players and administrators, John Lyall, Phil Mack and Bobby Ross.