Rugby Canada announced on May 5th a U18 men’s camp to be held in Ontario between July 1st and 7th, their announcement is posted below. Unfortunately long before this announcement there were existing age-grade provincial competitions and an international tour planned and announced.
File this under more Rugby Canada mismanagement and poor decisions. After two years of wasting time in Canada and no doubt enjoying the beauty of Vancouver Island, the holiday has ended and Stephen Aboud has returned to Italy to take up the High Performance role there. Rugby Canada and former board members continue with the charade of well wishes, not wanting to own up to the fact their poor decisions have put Canada two years behind in implementing an effective high performance strategy.
The Steve Meehan hiring is basically old news, most Canadian rugby fans aren’t happy but they’ve moved on. Which is why it’s difficult to understand why RugbyPass posted a Rugby Canada explanation today (January 21st) that was extremely poorly presented and not very credible. It’s an Ai (artificial intelligence) voice reading a script to slides, it’s not very convincing.
Congratulations to the nine 2024 Hall of Fame inductees. Their profiles are linked below but I have favourite memories for several of them who I’ve crossed paths with in the rugby world.
A good initiative from Rugby Canada in organizing these East/West high performance camps and listing the U18 athletes attending. The only negative we’ve heard is the cost to attend, the amounts seem to vary and may depend where the athlete is coming from. They’ve assembled some good coaching teams including active players as assistant coaches.
Jack Hanratty will leave his position as Head Coach of the national women’s 7s team after the Paris Olympics which ends mid-August. The Rugby Canada press release indicates he will take a short break and start his university role in 2025 which would mean he would miss the 2024 USports rugby season which runs from September to November. The 2024 championship will be hosted by UPEI.
Earlier in the week Phil Mack was announced as the Attack Coach of the men’s XVs program, in that article it stated Phil would remain with the Pride program as “Technical Lead”. We thought that would mean head coach but later Rugby Canada came out with a job opening for the Pacific Pride Pathway Coach that would include being “Head Coach” of the Pride and “Senior Coach” of the men’s U20 program. The deadline for applications is Feb 4th.
Phil Mack the iconic Canadian scrum half has been named as the Attack Coach for the men’s XVs team. Currently acting as head coach of the Pacific Pride, the Rugby Canada Academy, he’ll continue in that role while taking on this new role.
When the Rugby Canada Strategic Plan for 2024-2027 was announced there was some excitement around the National Training Centres initiative. In the plan it states the goal as “Develop high performance rugby centres of excellence in different cities or regions across the country to address the training and competition gap in women’s and men’s high performance rugby ensuring quality alignment with Rugby Canada’s national team strategic objectives.” There were thoughts of Pacific Pride type of programs in other regions of the country.