There were 6 Canadian teams who claimed titles at the Tropical 7s in Tampa over the Easter Weekend. MacDowell Rugby women claimed the senior elite title for the 2nd year in a row. The Vancouver Island Crimson Tide U16 girls won the open title. The Niagara Rugby Union claimed a double in the U16 girls elite and the U18 girls open. The Eastern Ontario Rugby Union won the boys U16 open and the Oshawa Vikings won the U23 women.
The following article in elobservador.com.uy was written by Ignacio Chans and claims the World Rugby Sevens Series will limit the number of teams to 8 next season on the circuit. It implies teams like Uruguay and Canada won’t be going up to the main series next year regardless of the outcome of the promotion tournament.
The BC Friends of Rugby are offering 12 scholarships of $1500 to BC graduating high school players. The announcement of recipients is typically made at the high school finals, so apply now before it’s too late.
Phil Smith has come up with a great resource for high school rugby on the Island and in BC. It’s a newsletter “Covering High School Rugby on Vancouver Island and British Columbia”. We’ve included a link below to download the full .pdf version which is formatted and includes photos. We’ve also copied some of the text below for a quick read.
There were 20 Canadian players in action in Week 9, 13 starters and 7 in reserve. Houston remains top in the West on total points but Utah have a game in hand and are top when considering points per match. Chicago are clear leaders in the East, leading in both categories.
Coach Christiaan Esterhuizen has selected 32 players to make the trip to Fiji in May/June to play Samoa, Fiji and Tonga. There is no JWRT U20 championship this year, and there’s been no mention from World Rugby on what future plans are for U20 programs outside of the Tier 1 nations who are holding their Junior World U20 Championships in June/July in Italy.
The BC Premier quarter-finals are here, the #1 Ravens and #2 UBC have a bye. The semi-finals take place April 26th with Westshore @ Ravens and Meraloma @ UBC. Results of other division playoff matches are listed below.
Canada finished 4th in Krakow with Day 2 losses to Samoa and Germany. That result gives them a 3rd place finish in the Challenger Series and qualification for the promotion tournament in LA in May. Canada earned a 2nd, 3rd and 4th place finish over the series, Portugal won two tournaments and Chile, which didn’t advance, won one tournament. The four teams advancing are Portugal, Germany, Canada, Samoa.
The Canadian women’s XVs team will be busy this spring and summer as they prepare for the World Cup in August. They’ve added Ireland as part of the build up, with a note in their news release, “additional match announcements for Canada’s Women’s Rugby Team will be made shortly.”.
The 2024/25 BC Rugby Senior Club Leagues Playoffs have been confirmed with the quarter-finals this coming weekend, April 12th. The semi-finals take place April 26th after the Easter break and the finals are in Abbotsford on Saturday, May 3, 2025. The complete list of times and venues is on the BCRU fixtures page.