Rugby Canada and Canadian Howlers Provide NextGen Development Pathways

Rugby Canada released its NextGen plan, it’s U20 for men and U21 for women. The plan includes camps at the U18 level for both men and women. The U21 women already had their tour to Ireland/England in March. The U20 men will be part of  the World Rugby U20 Challenger in Chile in October, they’ll have a camp in August. Up to this point there’s some symmetry with the men’s and women’s pathways but that diverges with the 7s  pathway where there’s a lot more focus and opportunity for the women. The women get development opportunities at the senior (EAAST Sevens), university (FISU) and U18 (Global Youth 7s) levels, the men just get development at the U17 level (Youth Olympics).

The Canadian Howlers, formerly the Dog Rivers Howlers, are picking up the slack for Rugby Canada in men’s NextGen development. They’ve organized a U18 XVs tour to Argentina in August. They’ve already selected a Canada roster in cooperation with the Canada U20 coach. The roster and match itinerary are posted below.

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Rugby Canada Announces Women’s XVs Pathway: BC Left with Invitation Camps, no Competitions

Rugby Canada announced its pathway process to the women’s XVs team and BC may have been left out in the cold. Ontario/Quebec have a recognized competition with 13 games, 10 indoor, 3 outdoor. Alberta have a 4 game competition, all indoors. The only province where you can play rugby in February/March outdoors, BC, gets 4 camps, no competitions. Three of the camps are on a Sunday and one on a Saturday in conflict with the women’s BC Premier schedule. The level of disrespect is palpable. With so many new faces coming through the Rugby Canada high performance management team, its difficult to know where the decision making on this rests.

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Rugby Canada Launches T1 Rugby as Official Non-Contact Version of Rugby

Rugby Canada put out an article two days announcing their T1 Rugby initiative. It’s another version of touch rugby that World Rugby came out with late in 2023. It’s taken a couple of years to get off the ground it appears. There may be a bit of confusion around the various versions of touch rugby, the standard Touch Rugby game which has its own governing body in Canada. Rookie Rugby which Rugby Canada has been using for years, and now T1 Rugby.

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Rugby Canada Seeks Expressions of Interest for Coaching International Age-Grade Women’s Sevens

Rugby Canada has put out a request for Expressions of Interest from qualified coaches for several age-grade women’s 7s tournaments in 2026. The three tournaments mentioned are:

• The Youth Olympic Games in Senegal
• FISU World University Championships in South Africa
• EAAST 7s in France

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Shawn Bullock Named as High Performance Director for Rugby Canada

Shawn Bullock, who has been working as a High-Performance consultant with Rugby Canada since 2022, has been named High Performance Director, replacing Stephen Aboud. According to his Linkedin profile, he also was working as the interim High-Performance Director for Nordiq Canada, the cross-country skiing NSO, during his time consulting with Rugby Canada. Nordiq Canada is based out of Canmore, Alberta. Prior to that he had time with Biathlon Canada (Canmore) as a High-Performance Consultant, and Hockey Canada as Director of Men’s National Teams (Calgary).

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Rugby Canada Start Search for New High Performance Director

Rugby Canada are looking for a High Performance Director to replace Stephen Aboud who went back to Italy. Aboud wasn’t a good fit for Canada, he knew little about the Canadian rugby infrastructure and the key people across the country he needed to work with. It was a big learning curve and in the end he returned to Italy where he had some success. The job transition from a country like Ireland or Italy where there is a layer of professional rugby to a nation like Canada where rugby is strictly amateur does not usually end well for either party. That’s not even going into the shock they have going from a small country where everything is a drive away to the geographical vastness of the Canadian rugby landscape.

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Rugby Canada Announce Community Grants: 38 Grants for Coaching in Schools – Deadline for Application November 7th

Rugby Canada has received some federal government money for Community Sport and they’re distributing it through several programs, the first is the Coaching in Schools initiative. They’ve committed to awarding 38 grants ranging from $1000 to $4500 for Coaching in Schools. The application form is here.

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Stephen Aboud Returns to Italy as High Performance Manager: Rugby Canada States Reason as “Closer to Family”

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.

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