Rugby This Week Westshore 7s and Canada U20 vs TWU; Next Month Canada Men vs Japan, Fiji, USA; Canada Women vs Scotland, England, France; BC Premier Starts but Where is the Pacific Pride
This is a summary/preview article of what’s happening this week and next month of interest to rugby followers in BC. This week/weekend it’s the Westshore 7s and the Canada U20 vs TWU match. Next month Canada men and women have 3 matches each, the men in Japan and the women in Europe. The BC Premier starts in a few weeks and we look at the implications with the Pacific Pride MIA.
Westshore 7s
The Westshore 7s takes place this Saturday, there will be teams from UVic, Westshore, Thunder. The Pacific Warriors who have won the mainland 7s tournaments this season, might make a showing. It will be a good chance to preview the young UVic talent coming through this season. We’ll have more when the schedule is announced.
Canada U20
The Canada U20 team are playing TWU at Shawnigan on Friday. We’ll see if we can get rosters for that match and write that up separately. They conclude their camp on Saturday.
Canada Men’s XVs
Canada’s next match is September 5th in Niigata City, Japan. This is what the JRFU wrote about the contest.
The Japan Rugby Football Union is pleased to announce that international test match rugby will return to Niigata for the first time in 18 years when the Brave Blossoms host Canada on Saturday, September 5 at Denka Big Swan Stadium, in the heart of Niigata City.
Famous throughout Japan for the quality of its rice harvest and known internationally as a world-class winter sports destination, Niigata sits 320 kilometres north of Tokyo, on the west coast of Japan’s main island of Honshu. Having last watched Japan take on Hong Kong in the 2008 Asia Five Nations tournament, local rugby fans will be delighted by the prospect of seeing the Brave Blossoms turn out once again in their town after such a long break.
Japan and Canada have a long rivalry dating back to their first meeting in Vancouver in 1930. Since then, they’ve faced each other on 33 occasions, with Japan holding the bragging rights with 19 wins, 10 losses and 4 draws. Interestingly, two of their drawn matches took place during their two Rugby World Cup meetings in 2007 in France, and 2011 in New Zealand. During their last meeting in Sendai, Japan ran out comfortable winners, 57- 15.
Having last lost to Canada back in 2005, Japan will be looking to continue their dominance, while Canada will no doubt be looking to put in a strong performance as they continue building ahead of RWC2027. No matter which team triumphs on the day, the local rugby fans of Niigata and its surrounding areas will be delighted to once again welcome test match rugby back to the region.
Following that match they’ll play Fiji as part of the Pacific Nations Cup, then either Japan or USA depending on results.
National Women’s XVs
The women will be starting their WXV campaign in Europe with matches against Scotland, England and France, starting September 12th in Edinburgh.
BC Premier
The men’s BC Premier starts September 12th. The women’s Premier starts September 26th.
The Pacific Pride, Rugby Canada’s academy team, quietly faded away, there was no announcement by Rugby Canada on its fate. It completed the BC Premier season in the spring but it’s no longer part of the Premier in 2026-27, in fact there appears to no longer be an academy team or program. What has replaced it, it seems, is the NTC program – The National Training Centre.
This summer Shawn Bullock, Director of High Performance, and Meaghan Howat, Director of National Training Centres sent out emails to specific players saying, “you have been identified as a player who would be interested in training in National Training Centre (NTC) program starting this September in Langford, BC”. The purpose, “accelerating the development of players in our national programs. Programming will be led by the national team coaches…”. The structure is to be Monday to Wednesday sessions at the Rugby Canada centre in Langford.
The implications for the BC Premier is there will be an influx of talent training Monday to Wednesday with Rugby Canada but available to clubs Thursday and match day on Saturday. It will be interesting when rosters start getting published to see who is suiting up. The national team players will be involved in the Pacific Nations Cup in September, the Nations Cup in November, and the Canada U20 players will be in Chile in October. There should be an infusion of young talent from across the country in club rosters this season now that the Pacific Pride program is either temporarily or permanently sidelined.