A few items to cover Monday morning of interest to BC and Canadian rugby fans. MLR, when is the schedule coming out? The USA searching for a new CEO. Canadians playing in the top European league. The BCRN archives slowly come back online and we’ve featured some stories from Zaruba, Moylett, Bain and Marshall, plus the 2022-23 BC Premier articles are back online
The boys U17 team that travelled to Colombia won the Torneo Colombo – Canadiense tournament against U18 teams including the Colombian national U18 team.
It was game over for Canada at half time as Spain ran in 5 tries, all converted, to lead 35-6 at the break. Canada kicked two penalties during the first 40.
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Classic Springboks won the Plate courtesy of a 17-8 triumph over Rugby Canada. Former Springboks flyhalf Morne Steyn was the star of the show for the South Africans, scoring a try, two conversions and a penalty to finish with a points haul of 12.
The new team, Vancouver Highlanders, will not play in the BC Leagues but will play outside the traditional BC rugby season from May 1st to August 31st. They’ll play in a competition called the RPC, Rugby Players Challenge.
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ISPARC, the Indigenous Sport, Physical Activity & Recreation Council, has put out its annual invitation for hosting sports camps or clinics aimed at Indigenous youth. Rugby is on the list of approved sports. Usually ISPARC will cover the costs of the hosting if approved.
On a very sunny and warm, (18 degrees), November afternoon at Jericho two evenly matched teams went at it hard with the result in the balance until the final whistle. While Burnaby picked up two bonus points, the Ravens escaped with the win after two last minute saving tackles denied Burnaby a shot at a tied game.
Thanks to Peter Muirhead who put together these league tables for the weekend ending Nov 5th.
Tables ordered by points per game
I met Barry Kelly, one of Lunk’s friends and one of the initial investors in ScrumMaster, over a pint and we talked about the early days of ScrumMaster. It all started with the merger of UVic Vikes Old Boys, aka Valhallians, and the club adjacent to UVic, Velox, around 1987. They merged as the Velox Valhallians. Kevin Wirachowski aka Lunk was from UVic and Barry was from Velox. As the ScrumMaster records state, Lunk began tinkering with scrum machines in 1986 but didn’t build his first one until 1991, that one went to Velox. It was a prototype machine, he built a second prototype and that went to Cowichan, where Tony Medina, the other investor was a member.
The Laval Rouge et Or successfully defended their Canadian title, Sunday afternoon, by defeating the Victoria Vikes 32-13 in the championship game of the 2023 U SPORTS Women’s Rugby Championship, held in Quebec City.