Men’s U18 Camp Announced for July 1st to 7th – Conflicting with Provincial Competitions and International Tour
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.
BC, for example, have their Provincial Regional Championships for U19 players July 5th and 6th at Shawnigan Lake school. These high level matches between the four BC regions will be used to select a BC team to compete at the national U19 championship in Calgary from July 19-27. That announcement was made in early March.
Then there’s an international U18 tour to Germany organized by the Howlers from June 26th to July 7th. The team will play 3 matches including a match against the German National U18 team. The tour was planned in 2024 and the team was announced in March 2025. It includes some of the best U18 players from BC and western Canada. The whole reason the tour was organized was because Canada weren’t planning a U18 tour in 2025. Stephen Aboud, the Irishman who was hired from Italy and now is returning to Italy, chose to ignore the U18 age level in his high performance plans, instead focusing on older age groups. Karl Fix has gone to a lot of effort to raise money for the U18 tour to alleviate the cost for parents/players. He raised over $75k towards the tour from his extensive rugby connections across Canada.
The issue is now parents/players are wondering, which choice do I make? The Rugby Canada announcment made some concession to other paths, “this national development camp will serve as just one of many talent identification points for Canada’s U20 Men’s Rugby Team… including (but not limited to) the BC Rugby Provincial Regional Championships, the Atlantic Rugby Championships and the 2025 U19 Canadian Rugby Championships.” It would have been advisable for Rugby Canada to acknowledge the Howlers tour as well, we’re all supposed to be working together, and this was a good opportunity for Rugby Canada to show they walk the walk when they talk about “One Squad”. Their quoted ethos on the One Squad concept is, “Across this country, everyone has a role to play in achieving success for our national team”. The Howlers going out of their way to put together a high performance U18 tour when Rugby Canada didn’t want to, deserves some recognition from Rugby Canada if their One Squad motto has any truth to it.
I reached out to John Tait, who is the Technical Director of the BCRU and interim CEO, as well as being a former international, a professional player, Olympic 7s bronze medal coach, uncle to professional players Kaden and Tyler Duguid, and parent to upcoming age-grade players. In short, a very qualified opinion. His thoughts were that an international tour to play a national team would be the highest level of learning and development for a player, the provincial regional competition would be the next level for learning and development and the camp a good choice for the rest. In terms of players missing from the PRCs who are on the Howlers tour to Germany, he will watch videos and get reports from the coaches.
There will be plenty of opportunities for U18 players to be identified for the U20 national team over the coming years. I hope Rugby Canada truly live up to the motto they’ve been trying to promote, “One Squad”, time to walk the walk. I can’t help but think of the time they wasted in hiring Stephen Aboud to be the High Performance Director, he came with his own ideas, didn’t take time to learn the Canadian infrastructure and work with it, and now he’s going back to Italy. It was a well known Roman who said veni, vidi, vici, “I came, I saw, I conquered” – in this case it was veni vidi discessi, “I came I saw I departed”.
If you want to read more comments about the U18 camp and how people felt about the lack of cooperation and communication, read the Rugby Canada facebook post and associated comments.
from Rugby Canada
Rugby Canada’s 2025 U18 men’s programming will see 80+ players from across Canada attend a summer development camp at the University of Guelph.
Held over July 1 to 7, the camp will be led by Cory Hector (University of Guelph) and Didier Banse (University of British Columbia).
The aim of the U18 men’s program is to bring together top players from across the country and expose them to a training environment that maximizes player engagement and development while fostering the next generation of Canadian rugby talent.
With a large and inclusive camp structure, this will be an opportunity for a broad pool of young players to gain exposure to elite-level coaching and to develop a common set of technical, tactical skills and behaviours. Players will participate in a mid-week scrimmage and an exhibition game on the final day.
“The regional camps in 2024 provided a great exposure for roughly 80 athletes from across the country,” said Hector. “This year’s camp will build on last year’s successes and format while adding the prospect of some east vs west competition.”
This national development camp will serve as just one of many talent identification points for Canada’s U20 Men’s Rugby Team, along with other provincial competitions taking place across the summer, including (but not limited to) the BC Rugby Provincial Regional Championships, the Atlantic Rugby Championships and the 2025 U19 Canadian Rugby Championships. With many opportunities for identification, the goal is to identify a broad player pool and talent pipeline across numerous competitions.
Provincial unions will nominate players to attend the camp, with the full list of players announced in June.
Rugby Canada 2025 Age Grade Programming Overview
U20 MEN
Canada’s U20 Men’s Rugby Team, led by Head Coach Christiaan Esterhuizen, will compete in the Oceania Rugby U20s Challenge in Fiji, playing Samoa on May 28, Fiji on June 2 and Tonga on June 7.
U18 MEN
Coaches Cory Hector and Didier Banse will lead a development camp for 80+ players from across the country over July 1 to 7 at the University of Guelph.
U20 WOMEN
Canada’s U20 Women’s Rugby Team, led by Head Coach Dean Murten, will tour to Dublin and play Ireland on May 10 and May 17 at the IRFU High Performance Centre.
U18 WOMEN
Coaches Jenn Russell and Chelsea Ross will visit the provinces to assist with talent identification and development work with the purpose of supporting the provinces in their preparation for and participation in the 2025 Canada Summer Games (which is a U18 women’s and U20 men’s competition).