Super Rugby Americas, the redesigned SLAR competition, is set to kick off on February 18th with a North American team in the competition for the first time. The American Raptors out of Glendale, Colorado will compete along with teams from Argentina (2), Uruguay, Chile, Brazil and Paraguay.
World Rugby announced the match official assignments for the men’s Six Nations 2023. The schedule and assignments are listed below.
The PR7s have been going for two years now with four teams, the Loggerheads, Experts, Headliners and Loonies. The Loonies were unofficially partly a Canadian side but now have been given a geographic area of north central USA and renamed the Northern Loonies. The Loggerheads are presented as Southern California and renamed SoCal Loggerheads, the Experts show as central USA and renamed Rocky Mountain Experts and the Headliners as southeast USA and renamed Southern Headliners. The new teams are New York Locals, Texas Team and two unnamed teams from Western Pennsylvania and Northern California.
Round 5 of the Rugby Championship kicks off early Thursday morning on the west coast, 2:40am PT with Australia v NZ. The Argentina v South Africa games is on Saturday at 12pm PT. Both games are streamed live on TSN.
The women’s Rugby League World Cup takes place in the north of England from November 1st to November 19th. The venues are in Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, York and Hull. The dates overlap with the women’s Rugby Union World Cup taking place in New Zealand from October 8th to November 12th.
The Vancouver Island Thunder defeated the Okanagan Coos in the semi-final and then the host Westshore in the final. Westshore had defeated the Marlins, winners of the Kelowna 7s, in the other semi in extra time. The tournament MVP would have to be Grady Bowd, he’s an exceptional talent.
The Kelowna Rugby 7s put on an entertaining event that had both a social and elite component. There were only 3 teams in the Elite division as the touring British side had travel issues according to the live stream commentary. The three teams were BC Bears, San Capri Marlins and UBCOB Ravens. The teams were evenly matched in playing strength although BC went in as favourites based on reputation. The Marlins came out as surprise winners and defeated BC 17-7 in the final.
There are a couple of club hosted 7s tournaments coming up in August. On August 13th is the Bayside 7s hosted by the Bayside Rugby Club and on August 20th is the Westshore 7s hosted by the Westshore Rugby Club.
The Premier Rugby Sevens series kicks off this weekend in California. It’s a closed competition that features four teams, the Loonies, Loggerheads, Experts and Headliners. The Loonies have some Canadian coaching staff, the men’s team head coach is Sean White and the women’s assistant coach is Robin McDowell.
It was a lot to a little for the Jaguares XV side as they grew a 47-0 lead and coasted to a 80-10 win over the Ravens. The Ravens tries were scored by Blake Mahovic and Alex Ball. In the second game Penarol defeated American Raptors 26-10.