Note: A couple of well loved and prominent members of the BC Rugby community passed last week, Kevin “Lunk” Wirachowski from Velox/Westshore and Ken Peace from Abbotsford. There will likely be a moments silence at some matches this weekend to honour and remember them. More info can be found on the respective club facebook pages, Westshore and Abbotsford.
UPDATE: UBC defeated TWU 66-12 to go 2-2 on the season. Next weekend TWU host the Pride and UBC visit UVic.
The Vancouver Wave won the BC U20 regional title with a 29-19 win over the Vancouver Island Tide. Vancouver were up 17-7 at the half, the Tide closed the gap to 17-12 early in the second half. Vancouver added to their tally to go up 24-12 with still 30 minutes left in the match. The team exchanged tries to push the score to 29-19 with 10 minutes left. Vancouver ran into card troubles and were down to 12 men by the time the final whistle blew, they played tenacious defence to keep the Tide off the score board for the final 10 minutes and hoisted the cup.
The BC Rugby season kicks off in all divisions this weekend. It’s preseason matches for most leagues but the Dunbar Keg regional U20 competition, the Coastal Cup University/Academy competition, and the CanWest women’s University competition are in their regular season this weekend.
The Pacific Pride aka the Rugby Canada Development Academy kick off their fall season on Saturday against defending Premier men’s champions UBC. That game will be played at MacDonald Park, the JBAA home ground, and kickoff is 2:15pm. The match is part of the Coastal Cup which involves the Academy and the University sides UBC, UVic and TWU. The Coastal Cup schedule is here.
We had a look at a draft schedule for the BC Premier and it looks like it will be down to 10 teams from 11 with the Rowers not competing in Premier this season. The 10 teams would be:
About BLRC
Burnaby Lake Rugby run 3 senior Mens teams, a Senior Premier Womens team & a growing mini & junior section. All 4 of our senior teams enjoyed successful seasons & made the playoffs & our U19 boys successfully toured Scotland & England in March 2023.
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.
by Peter MacDonald
On another cool, wet April day a big crowd was out surrounding the Jericho pitch for the biggest west side rivalry game since the 2011 BC semi-final between the Joey Alexis/Ed Fairhurst led Ravens and the Danny Fumano/Sean Mercier led Lomas (also won by the Lomas). In the curtain raiser at Jericho the Kats punched their ticket to the BC Div 2 final and a number of their supporters swelled the crowd making it a an old time west side meet up.