Congratulations to John Tait on the appointment and to BC Rugby for having the common sense to hire him. He built the national women’s 7s program to be one of the best in the world, when he left the program it took a rapid nosedive. We look forward to seeing what John can do for BC Rugby in improving its programs.
You may not be able to watch the Canadian national team’s World Cup qualifying match this weekend against Chile on TSN, but you can watch a new rugby 7s league launch in Memphis on October 9th. Such is the convoluted nature of sports broadcasting in Canada. A shout out to CBC Sports for covering the Vancouver and Edmonton 7s the last two weekends.
The 2021 World 7s Series was just two tournaments, Vancouver and Edmonton, but it goes in the record books and Canada finished 4th overall behind South Africa, Great Britain and Kenya and ahead of the USA in 5th. The full standings are on the World Rugby website.
Pacific Pride 36 – Van East 24
Note: Match photos (37) at nationalrugbynews.com
This was a game of two halves and the fitness of the Rugby Canada Academy side was a big factor. Van East went up by 4 tries and it looked as if they would ride their forward power to a decisive win. The Pride however upped their tempo in the second half and Van East had nothing left in the tank by the last 20. The Pride ran in 5 tries, a couple of them jogged in on the outside when Van East ran out of defenders. It was a powerful reminder that full time players are usually a notch ahead in fitness and it shows in the last 20.
I remember when keeping track of Tait or Tate when referring to the high performance coaches, John and Doug, caused some editorial grievance. Child’s play now. There’s a new editorial conundrum looming, keeping track of the Carson’s. There are 7 of them playing in BC and most of them are on track to play for Canada, with two already capped at the senior level in XVs and 7s.
The CanWest season kicked off last weekend with UBC defeating UVic 31-15 and Lethbridge clobbering Alberta 53-7. The win earned UBC a 5th place national ranking while Lethbridge are ranked 8th. The two top teams from CanWest will attend the nationals in Ontario in November.
South Africa as expected won the tournament, Kenya were 2nd, GB 3rd, Ireland 4th, USA 5th, Canada 6th, Hong Kong 7th, Spain 8th, Germany 9th, Jamaica 10th, Chile 11th and Mexico 12th.
Canada lost to USA 22-12 to start Day 2 before running up the score on the winless Mexican team, 48-0. Mexico failed to score a point over 5 games at the tournament.
World Rugby may call it the Americas Pacific Challenge but without any Pacific Nations it looks more like the Americas Rugby Championship minus Canada.
[ed. note some schedule changes below ‡.]
VANCOUVER A new competition in high performance mens rugby is coming to British Columbia, the Coastal Cup is set to launch Sept. 25.