Thunder Rugby was a program started in 2013 to promote the sport of rugby to Indigenous youth, to give youth the opportunity to experience west coast Indigenous culture and to experience rugby and Indigenous culture world wide through rugby tours.
Comox Rapids U18 Girls in Scotland
The Comox Valley U18 girls team, the Rapids, are currently touring northern England and Scotland and doing quite well. They defeated Northern RFC, based in Newcastle, 24-22 in their first match. They then defeated Borders 59-5 in Melrose, Scotland and are finishing their tour up in Edinburgh. You can follow their tour on their Instagram account.
I started this article after the first weekend of BC Premier cancellations/postponements on Feb 1st. The match at Klahanie was cancelled due to field closures and the West Vancouver Parks & Recreation website had a terse warning, “Please note that fields damaged by play when they should not be used (as described below) may result in closure of that field for the season and potentially a fine to the league.” I had always thought the Capilano RFC owned that facility, including the field, but obviously not, it’s under the jurisdiction of West Vancouver Parks & Recreation.
A few rugby mentions on this chilly Thursday on the west coast. Locally there have been a number of game cancellations for this weekend with chilly weather predicted. Most of the pitches are owned by the municipality and largely those decisions are made by the parks & recreation departments with consultation with the rugby clubs. All the Mainland Premier games have been cancelled at the time of writing, the Ravens at Jericho Park, and the Lomas at Connaught Park are cancelled. On the Island UBC @ CW at Windsor Park has been cancelled. The Pride v Westshore game on the turf at Starlight Stadium is still showing a go at the time of writing, as is the JBAA v UVic game at Wallace Field.
Today’s guest author, Monty Weatherall, has a unique rugby background that gives weight to his opinion on the BC Premier league. He played for Wasps Academy in England growing up, then attended McGill University in Montreal, Quebec where he completed a BA in International Development and Entrepreneurship. He played on the McGill University team for 4 years, and was captain in his final year when the team won silver at the Canadian University Men’s Rugby Championship (CUMRC). He then moved to BC to play for the Meraloma rugby club in the BC Premier. He worked full time while pursuing his rugby ambitions and in his words “was well supported by the club”. He was later drafted by the Toronto Arrows of the MLR, he made preparations to move to Toronto but when the franchise ceased operation he made a last minute decision to return to the UK and go to Law school. He obtained a post graduate law degree and currently works in Mental Health law and is on the path to qualifying as a Barrister. As he noted, “moving back to Canada is always on my mind, and I will see where a career in Law will take me.”
RugbyPass, owned by World Rugby, published an article on Scott Lawrence, the USA head coach (and GM), this week. It’s worth a read, it outlines his plans for the men’s XVs rugby program and how the U20 and U18 teams fit into that picture. It also talks about the results he’s getting, 3 wins in November against good teams, Portugal, Spain, Tonga, raising USA to #15 in the world rankings.
A couple of local BC rugby stories caught my eye today. The Comox U18 girls, they won the provincial girls U18 club title last month, will be touring to Scotland in March, and taking in the Scotland v Wales match. They’re playing 3 games while there. What really impressed me with their fundraising effort, “Adopt an Athlete” is the work they put into the player profiles, making it first person and making the rugby jargon easy to understand for non-rugby people. Well done Comox Rapids! Their intro and a link to the player profiles and donation form is posted below.
I was thinking on January 1st I’d write an article about what I hoped for in 2025 for Canadian rugby. Obviously the women to do well at the World Cup in England and the men in the World Cup qualifiers but my thoughts turned to the U20 men, that’s where I really was hoping we would see some improvements in 2025. I don’t know what Rugby Canada and their high performance director, Stephen Aboud, have planned for them.
The big news in November and December was the change in head coach for men’s XVs team, Kingsley Jones was out and Steve Meehan was in. A lot of people were hoping Jamie Cudmore would make a comeback but it wasn’t to be. UBC won the women’s university title, a first for BC and ETS won the men’s university title, a first for Quebec.
In September the BC leagues started, first with the Coastal Cup, then the BC Premier and lower divisions. In national team news the men’s XVs lost to Tonga to finish last in the Pacific Nations Cup, in 2025 it will serve as the World Cup qualifier. The women’s XVs defeated France in their first match of the WXV1 which was being hosted in Vancouver.