We reflect on the second 3 months of 2023, from April to June, selecting 20 stories that highlighted what was happening in local, national and international rugby news from a Canadian west coast perspective.
We reflect on the first 3 months of 2023, from January to March, selecting 20 stories that highlighted what was happening in local, national and international rugby news from a Canadian west coast perspective.
Wishing all our readers a relaxing and joyful holiday season. We’ll do a year end review after Xmas and get into the highlights of the year. For now here are some resources for watching rugby and some past stories that you might find interesting.
You know the future looks bright when a third of the players in the Team of the Week in the top professional league are Canadians. The Allianz Premiership Women’s Rugby competition in England is the top professional league for women’s rugby and Canadians are representing well. The Team of the Week for Round 5 included 5 Canadians, Emily Tuttosi (Exeter) at hooker, Daleaka Menin (Exeter) at tighthead prop, Sophie de Goede (Saracens) at #8, Alex Tessier (Exeter) at #10 and Paige Farries (Saracens) on the wing. Saracens and Exeter are top of the table as well.
File this story under the category, irksome. Rob Howley gets banned from rugby in 2019 for betting on rugby games that included Wales where he was a coach. As the BBC article calls it, “betting breaches”. His ban was 18 months, reduced to 9 months. He was persona non grata in the rugby world, so where did he find work, Canada, and who helped him land the job, according to BBC, Kingsley Jones.
Major League Rugby has announced its 2024 schedule which starts on March 2nd. The regular season is 18 weeks and then the top 8 teams will start the playoff round in July.
BC have historically had strong representation at the men’s U19 level. In 2022 they won the national championship but were defeated by the Atlantic team in 2023. They’ll look to put in a strong performance in 2024 and have announced ID camps for January. Greg Clague will be leading the U19 Men’s Program as Head Coach.
The BCRU have announced Mainland/Island U16 Trial Sessions and a U16-U18 Skills Session in Prince George for girls. Darcy Patterson is the coach and she just returned from Australia with the BC U18 girls where they made the cup quarter-finals at the Global Youth Sevens, losing to eventual winners Australia School Girls. In 2024 the U16 girls will head to Florida for the Tropical 7s, the U18 girls will travel again in December for the Global Youth Sevens.
The repechage tournament for the Paris Olympic 7s was announced by World Rugby today. It will be held in Monaco on June 21-23. The women’s team earned their way into the Olympics by winning the RAN tournament, fortunately the USA didn’t attend the women’s RAN tournament as they had already qualified as a top 4 finisher in the World Rugby 7s series. The men weren’t as fortunate and lost to USA in the RAN tournament forcing them to qualify through the repechage tournament.
