USA Rugby announced on January 5th the appointment of two interim coaches while their high performance review continues. Neither the men’s or women’s XVs team met expectations so the contracts of the head coaches were not renewed and a high performance review initiated.
Local rugby news is slow in the new year, so let’s take a look at what’s grabbing the headlines elsewhere.
What’s on your wish list for Canadian rugby this year? This is ours.
2022, what to make of it from a BC and Canadian rugby perspective? Obviously the top story is the women’s World Cup, Canada finished 4th, maybe a little disappointing for the world #3 team but they represented well, the tournament gained a lot of media coverage and progressed women’s rugby worldwide. Sophie de Goede probably put herself at the top of the list for most media-recognizable rugby player in Canada now, male or female.
[ed. comments below]
I got on this thread about rugby fitness after watching the Japan SDS team win the World School 7s tournament in NZ. The Japan team defeated the highly favoured Australia and NZ girls teams to win the tournament. I watched a number of games on both the boys and girls side and one thing that jumped out at me was the gap in fitness among teams. Of course fitness alone won’t win 7s matches, but without it, winning is difficult. I contacted a number of coaches who watched the tournament to get their thoughts around the Japan win. One noted, “good skills and the fitness that allows them to use them, a desire to work for each other, plus a couple of strong orchestrators”. Another noted, “if you want to simplify why Japanese teams do this, it all comes down to 2 things, discipline and respect”.
There have been a spate of coaching changes made in the rugby world recently. Last week Eddie Jones was sacked by England and Gary Gold “stepped down” from the USA job, the week started with Wales parting company with Wayne Pivac. They were all related to on field performance of the teams involved, England and Wales were not happy with their team performances leading into a World Cup year. The USA situation was more relatable to Canada, the coach didn’t make the Rugby World Cup, therefore he had to go, there were performance expectations.
Rugby Netherlands Confirms Canada Matches
Rugby Netherlands have confirmed their hosting of Canada on November 12th and also their hosting of the Canada v Namibia match on November 19th. Namibia have also confirmed their match with Canada. Rugby Canada have not released any information yet.
Shane O’Leary to Arrows
The Toronto Arrows announced the signing of Shane O’Leary. O’Leary had been playing rugby at Rouen in the Pro D2 which is the second level of French rugby. He played for Canada U20 in 2013 and helped them to a second place finish behind Italy at the JWRT. We posted an article on him in 2014 as he was joining Connacht and did an interview in May 2013 when he was preparing for the JWRT and was in Langford. Those articles are here.
Canadian Classics
The Royal Gazette in Bermuda, the host of the World Classics tournament, has mentioned some marquee names that will be attending the tournament which starts October 8th. Top of their list was Delon Armitage for England. For Canada they mentioned, “Jamie Cudmore will be among Canada’s big hitters. He made 43 appearances for the senior national team and featured in four World Cups. Hell be joined by John Moonlight, who represented his country in Rugby Sevens, including at HSBC World Series tournaments, three Commonwealth Games and winning two gold medals at the Pan Am Games. Canadas team will also feature exciting scrum-half Phil Mack and Brodie Henderson, who represented the country at the prestigious Hong Kong Sevens tournament.”
LA 7s Invitational
The LA 7s invitational wrapped up last weekend and some kudos to Canadian youth teams who stood out. The Celtic Barbarians won the Girls U18 division, MacDowell Rugby won the Boys U16 division and came 3rd in the Boys U18 and Thunder Indigenous Rugby won the Plate in the Boys U18 division.