Canada won’t have a team in PRO Rugby for 2016, but it will have a revamped Canadian Rugby Championship (CRC). The competition has had its ups and downs over the years – odd scheduling, questionable commitment, and even tribal warfare with the BC rugby union – but it remains the …
Read More »Forward Thinking (Vol. 1, Iss. 24): Brazil and the Americas Rugby Championship
With Brazil being one of six countries from the Americas included in the historic Americas Rugby Championship there has been an explosion of interest in the Tupis from throughout the region. To most North Americans, in particular, Brazil is largely unknown as neither Canada nor the USA have ever faced Brazil …
Read More »Talking Rugby (Vol. 2, Iss. 19): The Flip Flop
Back at you with another round of Talking Rugby. Perhaps the final one of 2015? Who knows? Still a few weeks left in the year, but the way this Fall has come and gone, I’m finding it difficult to keep track of the days. Enough with the formalities, let’s talk …
Read More »Forward Thinking (Vol. 1, Iss. 23): Move to 24 Team World Cup
Many people, myself included, have put forward the idea of Rugby World Cups expanding from the current 20-team format to one of 24. The central argument behind the change is that there are teams just as good as some of those at Rugby World Cups who miss out. Uruguay Passes the …
Read More »Notes from the North
Rugby Canada held a semi-annual planning meeting with the provincial unions this past weekend in Halifax. While there has not been any earth-shattering news, here are a few tidbits from there and elsewhere around the Canadian rugby-verse. NO PRO RUGBY FOR CANADA Left out of yesterday’s announcement that Pro Rugby …
Read More »Forward Thinking (Vol. 1, Iss. 22): New Pumas Era Has Started
Daniel Hourcade’s recent roster announcement was telling. He named a 25-man squad exclusively consisting of players based at home. Missing were all players contracted to foreign clubs – namely Horacio Agulla, Marcos Ayerza, Marcelo Bosch, Juan Figallo, Mariano Galarza, Juan Imhoff, Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe and Juan Pablo Socino. Of them Agulla and Fernández …
Read More »Talking Rugby (Vol. 2, Iss. 18): Could it be? Pro Rugby?
It wasn’t quite October, as we originally predicted, but it appears as if Pro Rugby North America is making an official announcement regarding their launch and plans on Monday November 9th, 2015. The question is whether the day will go down as a historic moment for rugby in North America …
Read More »Forward Thinking (Vol. 1, Iss. 21): 2019 World Cup Pumas
Daniel Hourcade’s side was regularly referred to by commentators as being one of youth and with reason. The team he fielded this past Friday in the Bronze final featured six starting players aged 25 or under and it was no different in earlier matches. In early 2014 Head Coach Daniel Hourcade raised …
Read More »Forward Thinking (Vol. 1, Iss. 20): Latin Love for Los Pumas
Following the Rugby World Cup Semi Finals results a headline in the New Zealand Herald declared that the tournament was to have the Dream Final, that being New Zealand vs Australia. Putting ability aside I found myself taken by just how little of a dream it is to have two previous …
Read More »How a For-Profit model might stop Canada’s slide
Patrick Johnson of The Province recently wrote his own autopsy of where Canada’s senior men’s rugby team stands after the 2015 Rugby World Cup; towards the end asking the incredibly important and disturbing question: “Why would they?” Why would a new generation of aspiring young athletes make enormous sacrifices, with no financial …
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