The BC Premier season resumed for the “spring” season with all 10 teams in action. It was a week for the home teams as they won 3 of the 4 matches, with other a draw for the home side. The Capilano v Vikes game was cancelled as Klahanie Park was closed by West Vancouver Parks & Recreation.
Vancouver 7s announced the schedule for the 3 day tournament. The men are playing an exhibition series against Trinidad & Tobago and Japan as part of the tournament. Canada will face each team twice over the tournament, playing them Friday and Saturday. The women start their tournament on Friday at 3:28pm against Brazil, then face Spain at 8:58pm. Their final pool game is at 3:08pm on Saturday, the women’s quarter-finals start at 7:32pm on Saturday.
We compared our Pacific Pride list from the start of the fall season 2024, 6 have moved on (3 to MLR). There are 9 new players but include 3 returning players, 2 started late in the fall and 1 is returning from previous seasons. There are 3 players from the U18 camps held in 2024, 2 from Ontario universities and 1 from the Welsh Premier.
There were 18 Canadians in action in Round 15 of the Premiership Women’s Rugby in England. Krissy Scurfield (2T) and Tyson Beukeboom (1T) scored tries for their sides. The results and standings are listed below.
Thanks to Peter Muirhead who put together these league tables for the weekend of January 25th 2025. He’s included a playoff “snapshot” which will be updated each week as the standings change.
The three BC universities took the top 3 spots in the first tournament of the three tournament CanWest series. The big surprise was TWU edging UVic for second spot as they won the head to head 12-5. UBC were the dominant team in the tournament going undefeated. Adia Pye of UBC was the leading try scorer with 8 tries, scoring at least one try in each of UBC’s matches.
Canada finished 4th in Perth, their best finish of the season to date after finishing 8th and 5th in previous tournaments. Canada now sit in 5th place, 8 points behind USA and 2 points ahead of Japan with 3 tournaments left before the final.
Rugby restarts this weekend in all divisions except Premier, which starts next weekend. The current standings going into the spring schedule are listed here.
A couple of MLR preseason news items that impact Canadian rugby fans. The LA franchise is in Fiji to play the Drua this evening, the team includes 6 Canadian players. Also the Seattle Seawolves match vs Canada Selects, scheduled for Feb. 7th has been called off, the Seawolves will play the local Seattle club side instead.
The Steve Meehan hiring is basically old news, most Canadian rugby fans aren’t happy but they’ve moved on. Which is why it’s difficult to understand why RugbyPass posted a Rugby Canada explanation today (January 21st) that was extremely poorly presented and not very credible. It’s an Ai (artificial intelligence) voice reading a script to slides, it’s not very convincing.