File this story under the category, irksome. Rob Howley gets banned from rugby in 2019 for betting on rugby games that included Wales where he was a coach. As the BBC article calls it, “betting breaches”. His ban was 18 months, reduced to 9 months. He was persona non grata in the rugby world, so where did he find work, Canada, and who helped him land the job, according to BBC, Kingsley Jones.
Major League Rugby has announced its 2024 schedule which starts on March 2nd. The regular season is 18 weeks and then the top 8 teams will start the playoff round in July.
BC have historically had strong representation at the men’s U19 level. In 2022 they won the national championship but were defeated by the Atlantic team in 2023. They’ll look to put in a strong performance in 2024 and have announced ID camps for January. Greg Clague will be leading the U19 Men’s Program as Head Coach.
The BCRU have announced Mainland/Island U16 Trial Sessions and a U16-U18 Skills Session in Prince George for girls. Darcy Patterson is the coach and she just returned from Australia with the BC U18 girls where they made the cup quarter-finals at the Global Youth Sevens, losing to eventual winners Australia School Girls. In 2024 the U16 girls will head to Florida for the Tropical 7s, the U18 girls will travel again in December for the Global Youth Sevens.
The repechage tournament for the Paris Olympic 7s was announced by World Rugby today. It will be held in Monaco on June 21-23. The women’s team earned their way into the Olympics by winning the RAN tournament, fortunately the USA didn’t attend the women’s RAN tournament as they had already qualified as a top 4 finisher in the World Rugby 7s series. The men weren’t as fortunate and lost to USA in the RAN tournament forcing them to qualify through the repechage tournament.
I did two levels of review on the book, one my immediate reaction after spending an hour scanning through from front to back, the other after I had read the book and had time to reflect on it. Both are posted below.
Rugby Canada is pleased to announce the Hall of Fame class for 2023. Nine Canadian rugby icons will have their distinguished careers celebrated forever as they enter the Rugby Canada Hall of Fame.
The theme of today’s post is men’s high-performance XVs across Canada, touching on the Highlanders in BC, Queen’s in Ontario and the Privateers in Atlantic Canada.
The Australian School Girls won their home tournament with a 27-12 win over the NZ based Rugby Vault team. The BC U18 team lost to the Australian School Girls in the quarter-finals on Day 2, 29-0. The girls division didn’t have a Plate category unlike the boys division, even though there were more girls teams entered.
It was a big improvement for the men, going from 12th in Dubai to 7th in Cape Town. For the women it was a slight step down from 4th in Dubai to 6th in Cape Town.