The JWRT kicks off on Tuesday with Canada missing. It’s the first time ever Canada have missed two Trophy tournaments in a row. Is it time for Canada to make a statement of intent that they’re getting serious about the men’s U20 program and host the JWRT for once.
Coach Kingsley Jones has announced 34 players for the summer tests for Scotland and Romania, it’s a mixture of youth and experience but it’s possible a number of the players won’t get selected for either match day 23 as Jones has his favourites and has frequently named players who don’t make the match day lineups.
Phil Mack named his Canada Selects squad to take on the Vancouver Highlanders in their double header on June 28th. The other match will see Highlanders take on Barbados. It’s a fairly strong side with a good selection of Pacific Pride players, some who are playing for the Altantic Privateers during the Coast to Coast cup.
The USA are playing Canada in August but they’ve released a 30 player roster for their July tests against Romania and Scotland. Canada are expected to release their summer roster next week sometime.
It was a similar scenario to Game #1, Canada dominated the scrums, the USA had the advantage everywhere else. Without Canada’s dominance in the set piece the score would have been a lot worse, Canada’s first two tries were penalty tries courtesy of the set piece. The 3rd Canada try was a kick to the corner from Matt Bennett to wing Spencer Cotie.
The Canada men’s XVs team are hosting 3 international matches this summer, two in Ottawa versus Scotland and Romania in July and one in Vancouver versus Japan in August. The tickets for the Ottawa matches go on sale April 25th.
ESPN Rugby was a great resource for finding historical information on Canadian Rugby. In 2021 they focused their attention on the Tier 1 nations and the historical information on Tier 2 countries like Canada has been getting harder to find.
With the Easter weekend upon us, the BC Rugby leagues taking a break for the weekend, I thought I’d turn attention to a question some may be pondering now, who will be the halfbacks for Canada when they start play this summer?
The former Meraloma coach who hails from South Africa has been appointed to the dual role of Head Coach of the Pacific Pride and the Canada U20 team.
The Canada men’s team currently ranked #21 will host Scotland #6 on Saturday, July 6th in Ottawa. The following Friday, July 12th, they’ll host Romania #20 in Ottawa. On Sunday August 25th, they’ll host Japan #12 at BC Place in Vancouver.