LA continue to roll as the only undefeated team. Toronto came up big this weekend and put the boots to Seattle who are floundering this season. New York continued their winning ways and Quinn Ngawati scored his second try of the season. Four of the games were decided by 4 points or less.
Congratulations to Julianne Zussman who is the lone Canadian representative in the 22 match officials named by World Rugby to handle the Olympic Rugby 7s competition in Tokyo.
Back on February 5th Rugby Canada dropped a bombshell on the rugby community with the announcement that they were putting in a “temporary” coaching team for the women’s 7s program pending an investigation. The temporary coach would be Sandro Fiorino, the women’s XVs coach, and the Olympic coach would be Australian Mick Byrne. The press release was vague and left current coach, John Tait, twisting in the wind. Although the press release didn’t mention him by name, the question in everyone’s mind was why was John Tait being relieved of the coaching position. The original article (with reader comments) can be viewed here: https://bcrugbynews.com/show_news.cfm?ID=3633
The UVic men’s rugby Head Coach position is posted on the UVic Careers website. The job posting has a closing date of April 26th.
One of the highlights of the weekend was young Quinn Ngawati’s first MLR try in New York’s win over Atlanta.
A better result for the men in the 2nd tournament. Canada beat France 29-10 on Day 2 to make the final. They lost to Argentina 26-19 in the final. Argentina won both men’s tournaments in Dubai.
Lachlan Kratz has signed with the NOLA GOLD for the season. He joins fellow Canadians, Eric Howard and Kyle Baillie.
Toronto notched their first win which made a number of Canadian fans happy. They outclassed the Old Glory DC side with former UBC player, Ben LeSage, having a strong match for the Arrows.
After watching the first matches on Day 2 where Canada’s women lost to France and the men to Kenya, there was a little bit of trepidation about the programs progress over the break. However by the end of the day with the women winning Gold and the men winning the Plate, it looked as if things were on course and as they were before COVID hit.
from World Rugby
– Fourteen international teams competing in Dubai on 2-3 and 8-9 April
– Combined event confirmed in Los Angeles over weekend of 25-27 June
– HSBC Paris Sevens Marcoussis event postponed
– World Rugby providing US$4 million funding for rugby sevens programmes and high-performance preparation events ahead of the Olympic Games
– Welfare and safety of players, officials and wider society remains top consideration