The World Cup 2025 draw will take place October 17th with the schedule to be released on October 22nd. Canada as the #2 team will be in Band #1 so will avoid other Band #1 teams in the pool round, the Band #1 teams will be #1 England, #2 Canada, #3 NZ, #4 France.
The Vancouver Island U20 Tide won the Dunbar Keg in a 23-15 win over Fraser Valley in Langley. Scoring for the Tide were Travis Dumbleton, Jasper Keast, Josh Keast, with Mike Oughtred adding 2 penalties and 1 conversion.
Thanks to Peter Muirhead who put together these league tables for the weekend ending October 6th 2024.
It wasn’t a perfect game for Canada but a strong defensive effort limited Ireland to one second half try while Canada did all their scoring in the first half.
The Ravens maintain their hold of top spot in the table with CW and UBC a point behind. Even though Week 1 matches were all close with an average +3 differential over the 4 matches, this week there were some blowouts with only the Vikes v Westshore game decided by 1 point. The average score differential this week was +24
The Howlers are preparing to head to Guatemala for the Gran Jaguar 7s tournament taking place October 18th and 19th in San Miguel Dueñas on the outskirts of Antigua, Guatemala. The team will be travelling down on the 12th for a week long preparation. National teams from Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, El Salvador will be participating, as well as development sides from Mexico (Linaje Azteca) and Guatemala (GT Juveniles). Besides the Howlers, 2 other social teams will be playing, the Chupacabras, a Houston, Texas based side and the Mayas a mix of Mexican and Guatemalan players.
UBC will host the 2025 U Sports Women’s Rugby Championship, the media release is posted below. The 2024 championships are to be hosted by UPEI in Charlottetown, PEI from Oct. 30 to Nov. 3.
I was browsing on X (formerly Twitter) and saw a post from an account called Tier 2 which asked a valid question, “Any good theories for why ???? Canada women (ranked 2nd in 15s & Olympic silver in 7s) currently such contrast to woeful state of the men’s sides? Even accounting for much shallower field on women’s side to be ranked 2nd with no Tier 1 money very impressive.”
On a cool, late September day the Ravens opened their season facing a fit, well drilled UVic team that was in good form having already had three tough Coastal Cup games. So, it was no surprise to see UVic seize the advantage early with a forward drive to score under the posts at 10 minutes which rewarded their control of the game to that point. Luckily for the home side though, minutes later, a UVic back hung a long miss pass which Ravens winger David Thompson stretched high to snag and quickly run in from short range 7-5 UVic.
Canada opened their WXV 1 campaign with a 46-24 win over France, the win will see Canada rise to #2 in the World rankings behind England. The match was close for the first 30 minutes with the teams tied at 14-14 until player of the match, second row, Laetitia Royer scored the first of her two tries to put Canada ahead, 19-14. A lead they wouldn’t relinquish.