Author Archive: BCRN

Canada v NZ – RWC 2025

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Canada Shock the Rugby World with Dominating Performance Over NZ 34-19

Canadian rugby fans knew that Canada could defeat NZ, they’ve done it before but no one thought they would dominate from the opening whistle, building up a 24-7 lead at the half, and then 31-7 early in the second half. NZ scored two second half tries at the 56′ and 65′ marks to put fans on the edge of their seat but Sophie de Goede put the worries to rest with a penalty kick at 74′ to make it a 3 score lead with 6 minutes left, 34-19.

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BC Premier Week 1 – Feature Players

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Players in the Spotlight from Week 1 of BC Premier: Napolioni Bolaca, Mark Balaski, Brendan Kim, Morgan di Nardo

We had a chance to review the match footage of 3 games that were put up on YouTube, kudos to Westshore and UVic for putting up the live streams and archives of the matches, and to Burnaby for putting up the match video post game. We selected a few screen captures from the videos to highlight some outstanding performances. You can view the timestamp on the screen captures to watch on the videos which are included below. The players featured from Week 1 are Burnaby #10 Napolioni Bolaca, Westshore #10 Mark Balaski, UVic’s second row Brendan Kim and centre Morgan di Nardo. All Week 1 impact players.

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Coaching Summit October 2025

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Two Day Coaching Summit in Vancouver October 4th and 5th Featuring Phil Mack, Lesley McKenzie, Ben Herring

The Rugby Site is hosting a coaching summit at Capilano Rugby Club on October 4th and 5th, it will feature two international level Canadian coaches, Phil Mack and Lesley McKenzie. The website and registration link is here, the poster and some information on the summit is posted below. Well known BC coach Curry Hitchborn endorsed the coaching summit, the Rugby Site and CEO Phil Connolly , “the Rugby Site is THE best online resource for coaches, Phil ran a successful coaching development conference in Ontario a few months back. Based on feedback from some of the attendees I immediately reached out to Phil to see if he’d be keen on doing one in BC.”

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Canada v Fiji – September 2025

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Canada Demolished by Fiji 63-10 in Pacific Nations Semi-Final: Face Tonga Next Saturday for 3rd/4th

It wasn’t pretty and a bit painful to watch but it was a reality check of where Canada stacks up against a top 10 team. Canada has qualified for the World Cup but they’ll face better teams than Fiji in the pool round so they have a lot of work to do before 2027. In fairness they were missing a number of key players, Ardron and Rumball from the loose forwards, Olmstead in the second row, Coats, Webster and Coe in the backs, those players make a difference.

Canada’s tackle statistic in the match, according to the World Rugby Pacific Nations website, was a 66% tackle success rate and 155 tackles made. A 66% tackle success rate is not good, when Wales defeated Fiji in the 2023 World Cup they had to make 252 tackles.

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BC Rugby Weekend of September 13th 2025

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BC Premier Week 1 Results: UBC Draw With Burnaby, Bays Ground Ravens, Pride Fall to Vikes, Westshore Defeat CW, Caps Top Lomas

A number of upsets in Week 1 as teams have recruited in the off season and the playing strengths for the new season become apparent. The biggest upset reported by the BCRU was the Bays over UBCOB Ravens. The Bays finished in the cellar last season and the Ravens won the Rounsefell Cup. In another match UVic were down 19 points at the half and upset the Rugby Canada Academy in a close battle. We have the full match video on both the UVic v Pride match and the Westshore v CW match, courtesy of the host clubs YouTube channels.

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Canada v Australia – RWC 2025

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Canada Dominate Australia in World Cup Quarter-Final: Face New Zealand in Semi-Finals

It was Canada’s best performance to date at the World Cup as they scored three tries through the backs in the first 20 minutes and then the forwards took over and finished off the match with three tries, Sophie de Goede also added a try at the 18′ mark and four conversions.

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BC Premier 2025/26

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Men’s Premier Schedule by Club and Social Media Links

This article contains social media links and schedules for BC Premier clubs, as well as the updated standings.

Standings – April 11th 2026

Team Played Wins Draws Losses BP Points Ratio
Ravens 16 13 0 3 16 68 4.25
UBC* 17 12 1 4 18 64 3.76
Westshore 17 13 0 4 12 64 3.76
James Bay 17 10 0 7 14 54 3.18
Capilano 17 9 0 8 15 51 3.0
UVic 16 8 0 8 15 47 2.93
Burnaby Lake 17 8 1 8 13 47 2.76
Meraloma 17 3 1 13 8 22 1.29
Pacific Pride 9 1 1 7 4 10 1.11
CW# 17 1 0 16 7 7 0.41

* UBC lose 4 points for defaulting Westshore match
# CW lose 4 points for defaulting Ravens match
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Pacific Pride Update – September 2025

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A Visit to the Pacific Pride, aka Rugby Canada Academy, Training on Monday Evening

I drove out to Starlight Stadium on Monday evening, the Pride practice 7-9am on some days and 5-7pm on other days, the schedule helps players who are also looking to hold down an 9ish to 5ish sort of job. The Rugby Canada academy helps a bit financially but players still need some sort of income.

Attending the practice were some heavy hitters in terms of the future of men's rugby, John Tait, the Technical Director of the BCRU, was in attendance. On the field running the practice was Pride head coach, Christiaan Esterhuizen, and skills coaches Hubert Buydens and Nik Witkowski.

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Canada Men’s XVs – September 2025

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Canada Men Qualify for 2027 World Cup in Australia

It’s official from World Rugby, Canada has qualified for the 2027 Rugby World Cup. One extraordinary game, the win against USA, with the return of Tyler Ardron who scored 4 tries, and Evan Olmstead who was massive in the tight five. Canada have already exceeded their accomplishments from the 2023 World Cup cycle where they failed to qualify.

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BC Rugby Weekend of September 6th 2025

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Coastal Cup and Men’s University UBC Crush TWU; and in Women’s University UVic Pummel Calgary

Two blowouts this weekend with UBC crushing TWU 76-0 to start their Coastal Cup and men’s University Championship qualification on a strong note and the UVic women continue their unbeaten run in the women’s University Championship qualification with a 74-10 pummeling of the University of Calgary Dinos. The UBC game video is archived below, we’ll post photos of the UVic match later today. There’s also match reports posted below courtesy of Thunderbirds and Vikes media.

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