Peter Muirhead did an analysis on the 2026-27 season and produced a list of clubs, how many teams each club has and which divisions they play in. The table is below. This is for senior men and women and doesn’t include juniors or masters.
The men’s Division 1 has 19 teams entered, the second team from the 11 Premier sides plus 8 other teams, Nanaimo, Comox, Cowichan, Port Alberni on the Island and Squamish, Langley, Kelowna, Abbotsford from the Mainland.
The men’s Premier schedule is here. During the season check the BCRU site for any last minute changes. We’ll also keep this post on the front page and updated with scores.
The BCRU haven’t posted the full 2026-27 schedule yet as they adapt to the new PlayHQ system which drives their website and schedule system. If you look at their website, at the time of writing, it looks to be in transition. They have announced the key dates, the season starts September 12th. It looks to be a 21 game week schedule, 11 game weeks in the fall, and then 10 game weeks in the spring, plus playoffs in April/May. The winter break goes from December 12th to January 16th. There’s no rep rugby, aka McKechnie Cup, in the schedule for the men but the women will have a 5 game rep season, Blue v Gold, or Island v Mainland. That’s in cooperation with the national women’s program and head coach Kevin Rouet.
The BCRU put out a job posting today for a temporary Admin Coordinator that basically covers the fall season, starting late August and going until near the winter break in December. Application deadline is August 1st and it pays $4,200 a month. Details and how to apply are mentioned below.
The Saratoga Cup final tournament takes place August 8th/9th in Fernie with the top team from the three regions getting an invite with host Elk Valley automatically qualifying. The current standings for the three regions are listed below courtesy of the BCRU.
It was a busy weekend of rugby in BC with the high school Provincials wrapping up, the national women’s 7s team at the HSBC SVNS tournament in Spain so the BC vs Alberta women’s XVs matches may have been overlooked a bit. Kudos to the BCRU for putting out a summary on Monday. Basically both the BC teams, Gold and Blue, won their matches against Alberta in convincing fashion. BC Gold, the Mainland, won the overall competition due to their win over BC Blue, the Island, in the first match. That result was a bit closer at 35-20.
BC claimed a 32-7 win in Game #2 for a 68-21 win on aggregate. BC came out strong scoring within the first five minutes and continued to add points throughout the match, Ontario got on the board in the last two minutes. The game notes are below. Showing well for BC were Cody Nhanala, probably the player of the series, Wes Black the surprise of the series (coming from a Div 1 club), Lockie Kratz who controlled both games, the McMullin brothers who are always solid. Brendyn Beck was also a player who deserves some attention from selectors and hopefully he gets invited to a Canada camp. Emerson Prior of course who was a mainstay of a strong BC front row. Don Carson was solid in the second row. Leave your thoughts in the comments section.
It was a good win for BC, the game sometimes felt like a Barbarians style game, neither team had a lot of time together and there wasn’t much cohesion in the backlines. The BC front row got the job done even though pregame it looked like Ontario might dominate this phase of the match with two international props but kudos to Wes Black who held his own against Djustice Sears-Duru and maybe won a bit more. Emerson Prior was up against Matt Tierney and again held his own and maybe won a bit more. Prior was the only prop to go the full 80 minutes. It certainly helped to have the two Carsons in the engine room. Cody Nhanala was probably the player of the match with multiple jackals and scoring the final try of the match. The McMullin brothers put in a good shift, both scoring tries, Talon with his enormous clearance kicks got BC out of trouble on a couple of occasions. Even though the BC backline couldn’t produce much in terms of passing cohesion, the chips kicks and grubbers through the line by Lockie Kratz were devastating and set up 3 of the 5 BC tries. Takoda McMullin’s kick to the corner set up the last try. The series is a composite score format so BC go into Saturday’s game #2 with a +22 advantage.
The photos from the 1st half of the Island Tide vs Ontario Blues are posted below. I had to leave at halftime when Tide were leading 19-7 so was shocked when I got home and saw the final score 47-19 for Ontario. The players in these photos Gradyn Bowd, Brock Gallagher, D’Shawn Bowen, Kyle Tremblay, Owain Rutten, Emerson Prior were instrumental in getting that 1st half lead and didn’t feature in the 2nd half. BC just released their long list for the Ontario matches and all of these players but Gradyn Bowd are on the BC list. Bowd may have picked up an injury in this match, he is not available.
The BCRU made a very short statement yesterday (posted below) saying CEO Matthew Carter would no longer serve as CEO and John Tait would act as interim CEO. Also there will be no further comment. He was hired a year ago, the hiring announcement can be viewed here. In part it read:
As the former Lotus F1 CEO and Team Principal and Business Development Director for Lille Olympic Soccer Club, Carter brings a wealth of leadership experience in sports management, business development and revenue growth that will support BC Rugby’s vision of becoming the safest, most vibrant, and inclusive Rugby community. We believe Matthew will be a transformative leader who will drive growth and innovation, while maintaining a commitment to our strong community values.