Rugby will be returning to the Newfoundland and Labrador Summer Games this August, and longtime players and leaders in the province’s rugby scene hope it can help revitalize the sport for the next generation of athletes.
The upcoming Games, which will take place in Corner Brook from Aug. 8-15, will see athletes return to the rugby pitch for the first time since 1988.
“It’s a significant step for us. [We’ve] obviously not [been] involved in the Games for a long period of time, so being able to offer our athletes… another form of competition, which is a life experience for a lot of these athletes, [is great],” Morgan Lovell, technical director of the Newfoundland and Labrador Rugby Union, told CBC News.
“It will give, I would say, close on 100 kids, male and female, an opportunity to play rugby in Newfoundland at a recognized multi-sport competition.”
The news comes at a time of success for rugby in Canada, Lovell said, highlighted by the Canadian national women’s rugby sevens team winning silver at the Paris Olympics in 2024.
Rugby sevens also made its return to the Canada Games this past summer, hosted in St. John’s. Lovell said he also hopes the emergence of non-contact rugby can entice more people to play.
In preparation for the N.L. Games, Lovell, coaches and local players are trying to help grow the game on Newfoundland’s west coast.
The union, along with players from the Corner Brook area, will be hosting a coaching clinic and player clinics this weekend for youth aged 14-16 to try the sport — and potentially start on the path to playing in the Summer Games.
Rugby players Steve Best, left, and Samantha Pomroy say they hope the player base for rugby sevens can grow in western Newfoundland. (Submitted by Steve Best)
“We’re looking forward to maybe getting more people involved, and not just kids out of this age group,” Corner Brook rugby player Samantha Pomroy told CBC Radio’s Newfoundland Morning.
“I think it’s a unique thing to bring to a community that doesn’t already have that… Especially for kids that maybe haven’t found their niche in sport yet.”
Steve Best, who has been playing rugby since 1986, said he’s found decades of fun and community in the sport.
He played rugby in the 1988 N.L. Games, and said it’s exciting to see it return.
“I picked up a rugby ball in Grade 10, and it’s really been my number one sport, you know, since I was a teenager,” Best said.
“There’s lots of options and lots of sports. But rugby, the camaraderie that you get in rugby, is just different than a lot of other things.”
LISTEN | Listen to Steve Best and Samantha Pomroy’s full interview on CBC Newfoundland Morning:
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