This is the Pacific Pride playing roster for the fall of the 2025-26 season. There are 29 players listed including five U20 players. Some of the players may move on to MLR in the spring season and new players may come in for the spring part of the season. We’ve also listed the Pride schedule as of August 2025. The first match will be September 13th at UVic.
Canada missing their two pros from France, Tyler Ardron and Evan Olmstead, aren’t the same team, that is obvious after this match. Canada’s goal was to get a 4 try bonus point, regardless of win or loss, but they fell short and now have to wait for the USA v Japan result next weekend. A Japan win or a USA win without a bonus point will see Canada through to the PNC semis and a spot at the 2027 Rugby World Cup. A USA bonus point win will see Canada start over again, and have to go the long route to RWC qualification.
What a difference having Tyler Ardron and Evan Olmstead, the two pros playing in France, in the starting XV. Between the tries and the steals at the breakdowns and lineouts, they were massive in Canada’s performance. Also kudos to the new coach Stephen Meehan, who has created an environment where the pro players were motivated to suit up for Canada. It was a solid effort on both sides of the ball and Canada looked in control for most of the match and definitely in the second half where they outscored the USA 17-3.
Rugby Canada released a list of “34 players to Canada’s Men’s Rugby Team’s training camp in Calgary ahead of the Pacific Nations Cup” but it appears they’ve left off a couple of marquee players as we understand both Evan Olmstead and Tyler Ardron are in camp. We’re not sure of the reason for the omission but we’re expecting both Olmstead and Ardron to be in the match day roster against USA. We’ll wait and see on that.
Canada were leading right up to the final whistle but made some poor decisions in the last 5 minutes and lost the match on a Spain penalty kick at the whistle. It’s a game Canada should have won, up a player in the final minutes and camped at the Spain 5 metres due to multiple penalties against Spain. Canada could have kicked for the 3, they could have spun it wide with the penalty advantage, but they decided to keep grinding in the forwards and eventually gave up a penalty. Spain won their lineout, won a couple of penalties in Canada’s half and eventually chose the posts at the whistle. It was a cruel loss for a team that hasn’t had many successes on the field.
Two first half tries by Josiah Morra and Andrew Quattrin saw Canada ahead 13-12 at halftime. Canada were the better team in the first half but couldn’t finish off plays and conceded two soft tries to Belgium. Belgium gained confidence from this while Canada went into panic mode in the second half, compounding their errors. Belgium owned the second half going ahead 25-13 from a try and two penalties. Canada scored a consolation try at the whistle for a 25-18 final.
And then there were 33. Coach Steve Meehan has pruned 11 players from his list of 42 and added 2 that weren’t on the previous list. It’s unlikely all 33 will see action in the two matches, Belgium on July 12th and Spain on July 18th. The Belgium match will be the easier of the two and where you would expect some new caps to be awarded. Belgium lost to the USA last weekend 36-16, 6 tries to 2.
On June 12th there was a 59 player extended squad announced, that has further been reduced to 42 players for the pre-match camp and the final 32 player list will be announced in July. There are some big names missing from the original 59 player list, just in the backs Andrew Coe, Spencer Jones, Shane O’Leary, Josiah Morra aren’t on the list, they would have been contenders for starting spots. Mark Balaski, Tiarnan Neville are missing so the #10 selection gets narrowed down. The forwards are less affected with most of the projected starters present.
I think Canadian rugby pundit Bryan Ray summed up the list nicely, “An interesting… and at the same time somewhat confusing list. Some rather obvious names are absent with no mention at all in the release… including a couple big names I was told would be in.” The obvious names missing are Tyler Ardron and Tyler Duguid, if they’re not listed, then they should be in the Declined category that RC published but which seems incomplete. There should perhaps be another category, TBD or Unknown.
It was a strong win by the Canada U20 men’s team who went 2-1 at the Oceania U20 tournament defeating Samoa and Tonga. There were 8 separate try scorers in the match with Liam James notching the double. Liam is the son of Canada rugby great Mike James who the announcer called, “the greatest player of Canada rugby of all time” on Liam’s second try (see video highlight below).