Players in the Spotlight from Week 1 of BC Premier: Napolioni Bolaca, Mark Balaski, Brendan Kim, Morgan di Nardo
We had a chance to review the match footage of 3 games that were put up on YouTube, kudos to Westshore and UVic for putting up the live streams and archives of the matches, and to Burnaby for putting up the match video post game. We selected a few screen captures from the videos to highlight some outstanding performances. You can view the timestamp on the screen captures to watch on the videos which are included below. The players featured from Week 1 are Burnaby #10 Napolioni Bolaca, Westshore #10 Mark Balaski, UVic’s second row Brendan Kim and centre Morgan di Nardo. All Week 1 impact players.
Burnaby #10 Napolioni Bolaca
When we googled his name, we found this, “Napolioni Ratu Bolaca is a Fijian rugby sevens and rugby union player, who has played for the Fiji national rugby sevens team since 2019. At club level, he has played for Fijian Drua. Bolaca was the top point scorer in the 2019–20 World Rugby Sevens Series. He was part of the Fijian squad that won the rugby seven tournament at the delayed 2020 Summer Olympics.” We watched the Burnaby match video and figure this is the same guy, he was good.
This first frame shows him with the ball around the UBC 22, 3 players outside him, the UBC defence drifting out wide to match up numbers. #1 arrow shows a group of 3 UBC defenders trying to close the gap, #2 arrow shows the 2 UBC defenders trying to manage the overlap. #3 arrow shows the path Bolaca took to score under the post.
He threw a great dummy pass just before this that froze the #2 defenders, the #1 group just weren’t fast enough to close the gap and if it was touch rugby he still would have scored, he’s that quick.
His talents weren’t just with the ball, his defensive speed was impressive. This is him off the line, reacting so fast to the pass from the ruck it looks like he’s going to intercept. This was a slow forward to forward pass from the ruck, can’t blame the #9 for this one but he read the situation perfectly showing great awareness and reaction time.
He didn’t take down the UBC prop immediately with the large size difference, but he did slow down the UBC attack and when his teammates arrived they stopped the prop short of the original ruck. After the Fiji v Canada match the Fiji captain said they planned pregame “to hunt” on defence, and hunt they did. You have to love that defensive mindset and aggression, wouldn’t hurt for some of that to rub off on the domestic players in the competition.
This is the final Bolaca highlight, it covers both defence and attack. UBC are returning a kick and it’s looking promising, player #1 has the ball and he has players labelled 2, 3, 4, 5 with him, player 6 hasn’t retreated from the previous lineout and is out of the play. You look at that and think there’s options, player 5 is the big UBC wing wearing #21, get the ball to him and it’s looking good. However notice the player has the ball tucked under his arm not in two hands so this ball is going nowhere right away.
Player 1 gets tackled and does well to offload in the tackle to player 2 and it’s still looking promising with player 5 unmarked, the fast winger. Also Bolaca comes into the screen, the red arrow showing his future path. It’s hard to imagine looking at this that in a few seconds he’ll have the ball and be 80 metres down the field, shrugging off 2 defenders and flipping a behind the back pass to a supporting #9 for the try.
Player 2 has the ball but is well marked, unfortunately he’s not looking to his right to the unmarked player 5. Still there are 3 UBC players in support for a ruck or offload, player 6 is still ahead of the ball. Good things can still happen, how would you play it?
This was not the option, player 2 throws a wild “hail mary” backhand pass as he hits the ground. Bolaca has been watching, anticipating and with that “hunt” mentality there’s only one winner for this errant ball.
A few seconds later he’s down the field, shedding the one defender and coolly managing the other defender while keeping his feet and eyeing a cheeky backhand flip pass that perfectly hits a supporting player, #9, Anthony Carroll according to Burnaby’s roster. Good play by him to be in support. So that’s some of the Napolioni Bolaca highlights that caught my eye while browsing through the match. The full match video is at the end of the article.
Westshore #10 Mark Balaski
Mark Balaski is well known to readers, he was part of the 32 players in Canada’s November 2024 tour to play Chile and Romania. He travelled but didn’t get any game time from Kingsley Jones, same as Josh Thiel, two promising #10s that hopefully will get some attention from the new coach. We start with Balaski getting the ball outside his 22 with 3 teammates with him and about 5 defenders immediately in front of him. The blue arrow shows the gap Balaski will take to score this solo try.
He’s split the gap but there are 3 defenders within arms reach, he still has 3 teammates in support.
He has deceptive speed and is strong on his feet, he blows through the gap with one defender on his shoulder.
Another defender comes up for an open field tackle, likely the fullback, Balaski going at full pace gets by him.
The opposite winger now gets his shot in cross cover, CW’s defence are getting their layers of coverage right, but no one can put Balaski to the ground. He now has a 3 on 1 with teammates on either side, the fullback and wing.
He didn’t need the help and dives over the line, an exhausting 80m run, beating at least 5 defenders. Not bad for a #10 whose main job is game management, distribution and tactical kicking.
UVic Vikes – #5 Brendan Kim and #13 Morgan di Nardo
The Vikes published roster didn’t quite match up with the players numbers at game time, di Nardo was listed on the wing but had #13 in the match. First up in the highlights is Brendan Kim, a big second row who also is listed as prop/backrow on the Vikes site. They list him at 6’3″ and 240 lbs but that hasn’t changed since the 2021-22 season, so suspect that’s not quite accurate and he may be a bit heavier. I’ve heard his name mentioned in a positive way by those who have played professionally in France, so hopefully he’s also getting on the Rugby Canada radar. In this first photo he’s lined up against a well secured ruck by the Pride but he ends up blowing it apart.
He comes straight through and puts the Pride hooker on the ground, it doesn’t turn the ball over but it slows down the Pride ball and if he had support it could have been the start of a turn over. It’s the sort of effort that needs to be recognized and I’m sure selectors appreciate this sort of aggression and physicality.
He keeps driving ahead and really has caught the Pride players by surprise in interrupting their ruck and momentum. He keeps his feet during this drive which is important to avoid a penalty.
Mission accomplished, disruption took place and the Pride have had their momentum broken, support runners have stopped and will be taking the ball standing still. He still keeps his feet and actually gets back onside and makes the next tackle.
On to Morgan di Nardo, who I think was the on form Canada 7s player last season. The Vikes roster said #12 Josh McIndoe but the announcer says Lockhart MacGregor for #12. Either way it’s get the ball to MDN, Morgan di Nardo, when you’re behind 31-12 and he doesn’t disappoint. Out wide is winger, TK, Thoron Koyote, a Cowichan product, also was part of the MacDowell Academy, it’s his first year uni I think. He scored the try, two tries in the match, but it was di Nardo who set it up.
The Pride are pinched in and the three Pride backline players move to cut off di Nardo on the outside.
He gets around the first tackler in the red scrum cap and then the fullback will come up (out of picture) and the #13 and #15 will converge for the tackle but he’ll offload to Koyote on the outside after taking out the two defenders in contact.
It’s nothing but net for the young Thoran Koyote but it was Morgan di Nardo who, in this case, did all the hard work taking out 3 defenders. It was the start of the Vikes come back which would see them win the match.
Videos