The men’s XVs team are in Japan for three matches in September, return home to catch their breath, maybe get in a BC Premier match or two for some of the players, then off to Europe for matches November 7th, 14th and 20th. They play Georgia in Tbilisi on November 7th, then Hong Kong in Chambery, France on November 14th, and finally Romania on November 20th in Bucharest.
The BCRU are putting on Level 1 Officiating courses in Courtenay, Abbotsford, Victoria, Vancouver, Kelowna, Coquitlam, Vernon, Cranbrook, Terrace this season from September to May. There are four in September in Courtenay, Abbotsford, Victoria, Vancouver and one in October in Kelowna. It’s important to get new officials continually coming through the system to support the approximately 700 senior league games this season, not to mention the junior club games and the high school games in the spring. The information from the BCRU and registration link is below.
Peter Muirhead did an analysis on the 2026-27 season and produced a list of clubs, how many teams each club has and which divisions they play in. The table is below. This is for senior men and women and doesn’t include juniors or masters.
The Canadian women’s XVs team are headed to Europe for matches against Scotland, England and France. The first match against Scotland kicks off on September 12th. Canada’s previous match was against USA in April, a 50-12 win behind a dominant scrum. The starting XV from that match are again selected for the Europe tour plus some key players from the 7s team are returning Alysha Corrigan, Florence Symonds, Olivia Apps, Fancy Bermudez. There are a couple of 7s players possibly getting their first XVs cap, Charity Williams and Savannah Bauder. It’s a strong tour group as #3 Canada play #7 Scotland, #4 France and #1 England.
Stephen Meehan has named his 32 players list for three matches in Japan starting September 5th. It’s a different looking team compared to the summer squad, it is missing a number of first string players. Not on the September roster are Tyler Ardron, Evan Olmstead, Andrew Quattrin, mentioned in the RC release as not available “due to club commitments” but also missing are Cali Martinez, Cole Keith, Piers Von Dadelszen, Peter Nelson all starters. There are six starters missing from the team that narrowly defeated Zimbabwe in July. It’s going to be a tall order going from Zimbabwe to playing Japan, Fiji and possibly USA minus six starters.
The men’s Division 1 has 19 teams entered, the second team from the 11 Premier sides plus 8 other teams, Nanaimo, Comox, Cowichan, Port Alberni on the Island and Squamish, Langley, Kelowna, Abbotsford from the Mainland.
The men’s Premier schedule is here. During the season check the BCRU site for any last minute changes. We’ll also keep this post on the front page and updated with scores.
It feels like rugby season is almost here as the last 7s tournament of the summer wrapped up. The UVic Vikes won the men’s title defeating Pacific Warriors in the final. The Warriors had won all the mainland titles this year (SFU 7s, Bayside 7s) but weren’t able to add the Westshore 7s to their trophy case. Along the way UVic defeated hosts Westshore. UVic had two teams entered and it was a chance to see some of the emerging talent in their XVs program this season. In the U18 divisions it was Thunder and Thunder winning both boys and girls titles. The program had just wrapped up a week long camp at Shawnigan Lake school and it looks like the program has some emerging talent. This group will form the core of their next NZ tour. Westshore won the U16 girls title.
Canadian Match Officials Julianne Zussman (Referee), Emma Gallagher (Referee, Assistant Referee), Kristine Lovatt (Assistant Referee) and Cam Russell (FPRO, TMO) have been appointed to the 2026 WXV Global Series & Global Series Challenger matches taking place this September and October. The WXV series is for the top tier nations, the WXV Challenger is for upcoming nations. Julianne Zussman has been selected to referee two of the WXV matches, and Emma Gallagher one of the WXV Challenger matches. The match schedules involving Canadian officials are listed below, also the World Rugby profile for Julianne Zussman is posted below.
The women’s Premier starts September 26th. There are six core teams plus Seattle who play an exhibition schedule, they visit each of the core teams once during the season. The six core teams play a triple round robin with 3 games against each opponent. That works out to 45 matches plus the six exhibition matches for a 51 match schedule over 18 rounds.
This is a summary/preview article of what’s happening this week and next month of interest to rugby followers in BC. This week/weekend it’s the Westshore 7s and the Canada U20 vs TWU match. Next month Canada men and women have 3 matches each, the men in Japan and the women in Europe. The BC Premier starts in a few weeks and we look at the implications with the Pacific Pride MIA.