Canada finished 3rd in Singapore, losing to Australia in the Cup semi-finals but defeating France in the 3rd place playoff. Canada finish the series in 4th as they prepare for the championship tournament in LA in May. The teams going to the relegation tournament are Brazil, China, Ireland and Spain.
It was the final weekend before the playoffs and now the playoff picture is set. In a surprising turn, UVic defaulted their match at Capilano and we understand Caps will be awarded 5 points. The quarter-finals look to be CW @ Lomas and Caps @ Westshore with Ravens and UBC getting a first round bye. We’ll wait for any final BCRU ruling on the UVic default before calling it official.
It’s always interesting to learn about the BC high school programs, their history and who is leading the programs now. Collingwood just returned from a successful tour to New Zealand and Australia over the spring break. This was their 17th tour and they took 57 players, a junior U16 team and a 1st XV and 2nd XV at the senior level.
If you’re not a regular starter in MLR, can you be considered an automatic for Canada selection? That’s a valid question as Canada looks towards its World Cup qualifier this year. If you’re good enough to get a regular starting slot in MLR, it’s likely you’ll be in contention for national team match selection but that introduces a problem as Canada doesn’t have MLR starters in several key position, the halfbacks, an openside flanker, the centres.
After weeks without sun and with plenty of rain of late this match was moved off the Westshore fields to Cowichan which generously hosted the two teams on short notice. But a soft pitch, on and off rain and a slick ball led to a defensive standoff for much of the game with no try from open play being scored till after 60 minutes.
Round 7 of MLR saw the most Canadian players in action with 13 starting and 15 in the reserves. San Diego lost their first match and now share the lead in the West with Houston, Chicago remain top in the East. There were 4 Canadian try scorers, all in the New England v Utah match, Brock Webster, Nic Benn, Andrew Quattrin and Cameron Nordli-Kelemeti getting tries according to MLR stats.
Thanks to Peter Muirhead who put together these league tables for the weekend of March 29th 2025. He’s included a playoff “snapshot” which will be updated each week as the standings change. He’s also added a new column “ROC” to monitor BC Rugby applied sanctions that need to be factored in to make the win/loss/points add up correctly.
Canada have risen to fourth in the World Rugby 7s series with a bronze medal win in Hong Kong. They now have 56 points, tied with USA, with one more tournament in Singapore before the championship tournament in LA.
This is the last weekend of the scheduled regular season, there’s one more weekend of make-up games next week and then the playoffs start April 12th.
The Canada men’s XVs team will host Belgium and Spain at Edmonton’s Clarke Stadium in July. It will be Canada vs Belgium on Saturday July 12th and then Canada v Spain on Friday July 18th.