Seven New Forwards and Five New Backs Added to Pacific Pride 2026 Spring Roster
The Pride haven’t exactly been setting the rugby world on fire with their 2025 fall results, a 0-4 record in the BC Premier and a loss to the visiting Chicago Hounds Academy side. One area they need reinforcements is in the forwards, particularly the tight five, and most notably at the prop position where they have had to borrow players on occasion. They have 7 new forwards coming in and 5 backs. The most notable name in the forwards is probably UVic’s Jordy Auger (hooker) and in the backs Jacob Ince (centre) from the uni champions, Guelph Gryphons.
Many players are coming from recent U18 and U19 camps and competitions so it’s a young group which will benefit the Canada U20 team moving forward. They start the spring season on January 24th with a Premier match against Capilano, then its Meraloma. They’ll play TWU in an exhibition and then the Atlantic Privateers from Halifax. They have 3 more Premier matches in Feb/March (CW, UBC, Burnaby) before an April match against the Seattle club side.
New Forwards
Adam Robinson – Canada U18 camp
Cian McCallum – Alberta U19, Calgary Hornets
Eric Rutledge – prop Memorial University, Rock U19, from Cape Breton
Jacques Bonsant – 2nd row for Alberta Wolf Pack
Jordan Auger – hooker for the Vikes, Canada U20 in 2023
Mateo Quinonez – Atlantic Rock U18, attended Canada U18 East camp in 2024
Oskar Benoit – Meralomas, attended Argyle HS
New Backs
Galin Moir – University of Waterloo
Jacob Ince – a member of the Guelph university championship team, was drafted by Utah before they folded
Luke Prest – a savvy scrum-half, has toured extensively with the Dog River Howlers
Max MacLeod – PEI for Canada Summer Games, Canada U18 camp
Noah Hudson – University of Guelph, Ontario U19
I hope Canadian ruggers support Pride’s move to a younger group. Their win/loss record is less important. This will provide the pathways for these young players to develop. Previously, a missing link. Great to see Luke Prest get his shot. Talented player with heaps of potential.
The PRIDE original mandate was to prepare U25 players to enter our National
Men’s Team. Players from all over CANADA were asked to join the Pride Program.
The “RIGHT” kind of players needed to be selected to that program. That job was
lead by the Head Coach. When David Clark ran this program, it worked well.
In 1998/99 I was the head coach of JBAA and we easily won a BC Championship.
Our record was 18 Wins 4 Losses . We lost twice to the Pacific Pride !
The Pride team was active 7 Days a week with good coaching ( D Clark/ John Mac )
No team , in the Premier League , should be favoured to beat The Pride.
The 2025 game results from Pride Team show the failure of the Pride’s Coaching team.
They should all be fired by RC and new Head Coach appointed and allowed to build a
program for 2026/27. You hire the right people and the program will flourish !
Our senior men’s team will continue to flounder until the Pride Program is fixed .
That fix will be shown when the PP wins 90% of their Premier League games.
HH Jono
Former National Men’s Coach (Canada was ranked in World Top 15 )