Kingsley Jones Names 30 Player Squad for July Tests vs Wales and England

It’s an interesting selection, first of all two players who weren’t even on the extended list announced two weeks ago are now on the team. Lucas Albornoz and Reegan O’Gorman, both second rows, weren’t mentioned in the extended list but now find themselves in the tour squad. It could have to do with their recent MLR performances or the fact two established second row players, Evan Olmstead and Kyle Baillie, are now “Unavailable for Selection”.

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Canada Announce Long List of 40 Players for July Tests: Travelling Roster Announcement Mid-June

Rugby Canada announced the men’s Canada XVs long list (40 players) for the July tests in a very muted manner. The article originally wasn’t even on the front page just as a list under the men’s XVs program. The list wasn’t alphabetical but seemed to be listed in order of position. My guess is it came from the coach without any media interpretation which may be useful in getting an insight into Kingsley Jones’ thinking on selection.

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USA Name 41 Player Preliminary Roster for July Tests: 75% of Players from MLR Teams

The US have named a 41 player preliminary roster that will be reduced to 30 by late June. It’s a good move and allows the MLR teams to plan early around the disruption of the July tests. Rugby Canada have stated they will release their list by mid-June and whether that’s an extended roster or closer to the travelling 30 man roster, remains to be seen.

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A Look at the Canada Men’s XVs Team: Who Are the Likely 30 Heading to the UK in July

[ed. we’ve no doubt inadvertently overlooked someone, we’ll revisit the selections in a couple of weeks to update the percentages based on new data and reader feedback. Use the comment section below or email editor@bcrugbynews.com to add your thoughts.]

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Hong Kong Rugby Union Terminates Elite Rugby Program for Men’s XVs – How You Can Help Fund the Canadian Elite Men’s XVs Academy

News that Hong Kong has terminated its Elite men’s XVs program due to the financial pressures of COVID should make Canadian rugby supporters take note and resolve to keep its Elite men’s XVs academy funded and running. The Pacific Pride, aka Rugby Canada Development Academy, operating under the coaching of Jamie Cudmore and Phil Mack is one of the few competitive advantages Canada have over their Americas rivals. In order to get to the 2023 World Cup, Canada’s first goal is to finish top 2 in the Americas, and in that context they are looking directly at USA and Uruguay.

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Uruguay Sources Publish New RWC 2023 Americas Qualifying Process: Rugby Canada Haven’t Acknowledged Change Yet

[ed. at the time of publication Rugby Canada haven’t acknowledged the change in qualifying process.]

A journalist from Uruguay, Ignacio Chans, creator of the Uruguay Rugby News twitter.com/RugbyNews_uy has broken the news about the 2023 RWC qualifying process for the Americas. The article, in Spanish, is here.

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National Coach Kingsley Jones Invites 36 Players to Three Week High Performance Camp in BC: 34 of 36 Have Played in the BC Premier League

[ed. when we listed the 34 players from the BC Premier, we only listed each player once starting with the universities, then the clubs. Some players have played for more than one BC Premier club, for example, UVic players Doug Fraser, Jake Ilnicki have also played for CW and Liam Murray and Conor Keys have also played for James Bay.]

The men’s national team will bring together 36 domestic based players for a high performance camp in Langford, BC from from November 9th to 29th.

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A Look at the Canadian Development Academy (Pacific Pride) Players in Camp

Below are a list of players attending the Academy sessions, we’ve added our notes on the players, feel free to use the comments section to add more information. The group a player is assigned to is sometimes dictated by work and school schedule.

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Pride Rebrands to Canadian Development Academy; Phil Mack Added to Coaching Staff; Match vs Arrows Planned

It’s normally a time we look forward to our first rugby matches of the BC season, not so this year with COVID, many of the BC clubs are rolling out their touch and flag rugby plans for the fall. Check with your local club rep for more details.

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U20 JWRT by the Numbers – Which Tier 2 Country is Best at Promoting U20 Players to Senior Caps, Also Canada U20 Team Lists 2012 to 2019

World Rugby came out with an interesting document, a summary of the U20 JWRT.

World Rugby Summary of U20 JWRT

We took a look at the most capped players (senior caps) from each JWRT. Only 2 Canadian players showed up on the list, Lucas Rumball (35 caps) who played in the 2014 and 2015 JWRT and Djustice Sears-Duru (52 caps) who played in the 2013 JWRT. Counting up the players from other countries who topped the list, Portugal had 11 players, Uruguay had 7 players, Georgia had 6 players, Namibia had 4 players, Russia had 3 players.

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