MLR Round 11 was a bit different as it started on Tuesday, ended on Sunday and 3 teams ended up playing twice! There were 25 Canadian players in action, 14 starting and 11 in reserves. Houston leads the West on total points but Utah with a game in hand lead in points per match. New England has overtaken Chicago to lead in the East.
After a four-week layoff the Ravens stepped back onto the pitch on a sunny day at Jericho to contest the BC semi-final game against its most recent opponent, Westshore. And as the vendors selling trinkets to the cruise ship passengers say it was “same, same, but different”. The Ravens won comfortably but Westshore played at a high pace and consistently challenged the Ravens defence as they did at Cowichan in March.
The finals have been set, in men’s Premier it will be Ravens v UBC, in the women’s Premier it will be Westshore v Thunderbirds. In other finals it will be JBAA v Burnaby in men’s Div 1, Abbotsford v Meraloma in women’s Div 1, Kamloops v Brit Lions in men’s Div 2, Comox v Nanaimo in women’s Div 2, Burnaby v Langley in men’s Div 3. All the match results are listed below.
We saw this on Bayside’s Instagram page and thought it was a great idea. We have been contemplating setting up some sort of Job Board on BCRN to serve the BC Rugby community. The BC Rugby community is fairly tight, if I don’t know you, I know someone who does, 2 degrees of separation. That level of connection between rugby connected employers and rugby connected job seekers offers a built in level of trust and vetting.
It’s semi-finals weekend this Saturday with 14 matches over 7 divisions at 10 venues. You can catch the action at the following venues, Jericho Beach Park, UBC Gerald McGavin Centre, Juan de Fuca centre, May Bennett Park, Abbotsford Exhibition Park, Brockton Oval, Kamloops Exhibition Park, South Surrey Athletic Park, Crush Crescent, Klahanie Park.
There were 24 Canadian players in action in Week 10, 11 starters and 13 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 leaders in the East, with New England closing the gap. Shane O’Leary at fullback and Nic Benn on wing made the MLR team of the week.
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 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.