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.
It’s time for a quick reflection on where we are, rugby-wise, in BC and Canada as the summer of 2022 comes to a close.
In the wake of the Canada U20 loss to Zimbabwe we dove a little deeper into the play and analyzed the first Zimbabwe try. The conclusion is that it came down to winning the one on one battle at the breakdown, coupled with some chaos in the defence.
This weekend is the MLR final between New York and Seattle but there’s another battle brewing and it’s not on the field.
We’ve been meaning to run these various stories but with news time ticking down we’ve compiled them into one article.
Evan Olmstead
Even Olmstead is moving from Biarritz to Agen for the next two seasons. Agen are struggling a bit in Pro D2, sitting in 13th place, two spots up from the relegation zone. His move there will hopefully help them move up in the rankings towards the Top 14 promotion zone.
The BC Club finals are over so in BC the question is, what’s next?
This Saturday the American Raptors are visiting to take on the Canada West team, I’m expecting some PR from Rugby Canada on that soon. The game was going to take place at Starlight Stadium but it’s now been moved to Shawnigan Lake. The Raptors put 100+ points on the Seattle club team last weekend so they have some firepower.
[ed. I’ve added another letter from John Lecky, his comments can be viewed in this .pdf document.]
Not that I particularly wanted to resurrect this as, I think, most have given up on Rugby Canada and just want to concentrate on grassroots rugby, club rugby and supporting provincial rugby. However I did say I would publish this open letter from Chris Le Fevre to the Chair of Rugby Canada, Sally Dennis. Chris Le Fevre is a former Rugby Canada board member and was also on the iRB (World Rugby) Executive Council. The letter is posted below (as an image).