Only four matches in the MLR this week. San Diego furthers their lead in the west (49) going 10 points ahead of Seattle (39) who have a game in hand. New England continues to lead the east (38) with Old Glory taking 2nd (29) and NY holding onto 3rd place (28).
The women’s program is in a good place right now, they’re in no danger of relegation as the women’s series, unlike the men’s series, has no relegation this year. Canada sit in 8th place currently and will finish the series in 8th, the team above them Great Britain are too far ahead to catch, the team behind them, Japan, are unlikely to make up the 8 points this tournament. It’s not the top 3 team Canada were used to under John Tait but it’s a good place to be while rebuilding. Also making life easy is the fact USA will finish top 4 and will automatically qualify for the Olympics, meaning they won’t be at the RAN qualification tournament in August, the women should qualify for the Olympics with ease.
Canada are going to the relegation tournament in London, they’re 25 points behind Uruguay for 11th so it’s mathematically impossible to catch them, even if Canada won the tournament and Uruguay finished last. So the Toulouse tournament serves two purposes, stay ahead of Japan who are 8 points behind Canada and in the automatic relegation position. If Japan made the Cup round and Canada didn’t there could be a danger of that happening. Japan are in a pool with Samoa, Australia and Ireland so that scenario is unlikely to happen. The second purpose in Toulouse is to get Canada ready to win the relegation tournament the following weekend that will include Tonga, Canada, likely Kenya, and either Uruguay or Spain.
from Rugby Canada
Tickets for the rugby sevens regional qualification event for Paris 2024 that will be hosted at Starlight Stadium in Langford, BC over August 19-20 will go on sale on Tuesday May 9, 2023, at 10:00 a.m. PT / 1:00 p.m. ET.
Even though there’s nothing official, which isn’t surprising from Rugby Canada, this is the latest info we have on what’s happening at HQ.
Rugby Canada have been fairly tight lipped about the U20 program this year with the team already in the air to Uruguay before announcing the team selections and matches. The first question many will have, are the games live streamed, and the Rugby Canada announcement doesn’t specifically tackle that question but does say, “Results from the matches in Uruguay will be posted to Rugby Canadas social media accounts”. That doesn’t sound promising but we’ll see if anything develops over the next week.
We’re going to run a survey to monitor interest in having an MLR team in BC. We’ll leave the survey link on the home page so people can find it easily and we’ll collect data over time. Every month we’ll do a draw for a Gilbert TR4000 rugby ball, the draw will be done from survey respondents. We’ll notify the winner by email.
from World Rugby
After six days of exciting competition in Stellenbosch, South Africa, the World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series 2023 came to a climax at Markötter Stadium on Sunday afternoon with South Africa women and Tonga men being crowned overall tournament champions.
UBC 32 v Meraloma 25
Referee: Shanda Assmus AR1: David Smortchevsky AR2: Malcolm Klaver No.4: Alan Hudson
Venue: Bayside (South Surrey Athletic Park)
The Lomas opened the scoring a few minutes into the match when they found a ruck undefended by UBC and the big #8 Jalan Farris picked the ball up and ran straight ahead. He found #13 off his shoulder for the try, 7-0. At 11 minutes UBC #13 Takoda McMullin slotted a penalty to make the score 7-3. 15 minutes into the match UBC took its first lead. The Lomas were attacking at the UBC 22 when the #10 tried a skip pass to the outside backs that was alertly picked off by his counterpart, James Biss, who legged it in from 80 metres out, 8-7 for UBC.
The Pride defeated the Oshawa Vikings 1st team 45-12. Pride winger JV Vinette played well and the Pride front row had some dominance. For Oshawa their second row James Stockwood stood out. In the other match the James Bay Reserves defeated the Oshawa Vikings 2nd team 60-12.