There’s 26 days before the BC Premier league begins on September 13th. The BCRU have the schedule up, we’ve included the link below. We’ve also listed the Premier schedule for each club and a preview video, entirely Ai created from the schedule link.
It wasn’t the final most would have expected, that would have been a Canada v USA matchup for Gold and Silver but Brazil were the surprise team of the tournament defeating Canada in the semi-finals and USA in the finals. Brazil won Gold and USA Silver. In the men’s tournament it was Argentina Gold, Uruguay Silver and Chile Bronze. It would have been a good learning experience for a Canadian men’s U20 team.
Rugby Canada announced a change in the squad at the women’s Rugby World Cup, their post on social media stated “After suffering an injury in Canada’s match against Ireland, Pamphinette Buisa has been ruled out of the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025. Wishing you a speedy recovery Pamphinette! Julia Omokhuale has been called into the squad as a replacement.” They kick off their tournament on August 23rd against Fiji.
A few news items for Thursday, the Thunder Indigenous Rugby program is in NZ, playing their final match in Wellington as this goes to press. They notched up their first wins in NZ earlier in the week, so congrats to them. The Junior PanAm 7s kick off on Saturday for the U20 women and World Rugby is introducing a new concussion mouthguard for the Women’s Rugby World Cup, details and links below.
The BC women’s programs have been on a tear recently, winning the national U19 XVs title and now the Canada Games U18 7s title. They defeated Ontario in the final 22-10 to win Gold, Alberta claimed Bronze. The men came up second best to Ontario for the second time this summer, losing the U19 XVs title and now the Canada Games U20 7s title. BC claimed Silver in both cases. It was a close 17-12 loss with Ontario keeping their nerve and scoring the winning try at the whistle. Quebec claimed Bronze with a 17-15 win over Alberta.
Rugby Canada released a list of “34 players to Canada’s Men’s Rugby Team’s training camp in Calgary ahead of the Pacific Nations Cup” but it appears they’ve left off a couple of marquee players as we understand both Evan Olmstead and Tyler Ardron are in camp. We’re not sure of the reason for the omission but we’re expecting both Olmstead and Ardron to be in the match day roster against USA. We’ll wait and see on that.
The home side Yeti Rugby were dominant in the women’s 7s competition, outscoring opponents 175 to 22, and claimed the 2025 women’s title. The men’s XVs competition was a lot closer with Vernon winning the final by one point over the Terrace team.
It was a game of two halves, as Canada had basically won the match by halftime with a 33-7 lead. Canada went through a “blue” patch from about the 60 minute mark up to the final 5 minutes where Ireland scored 3 tries and were playing the better rugby. Canada lost captain Alex Tessier in the first half to an HIA and she didn’t return, her leadership may have been missed during that lull in the second half when the subs had been made. Florence Symonds looked good in the first half with 2 key tries, the player of the match over the full 80 was loose forward Fabiola Forteza.
A few news items from midweek, MLR purportedly down to 8 teams with Miami the latest casualty. The BC U17 camp is on and the first games played, the women defeated Alberta and the men lost a game to a UK touring team. The Tragically Hip have jumped on the Women’s World Cup fundraising drive with a limited edition T-Shirt with proceeds to the women’s team.
There are 3 tournaments to wrap up the summer 7s season, starting this weekend at Bayside, then Burnaby on the 16th and then over to the Island for the Westshore 7s on the 23rd. Details on the posters below.