Weekend preview: Africa Gold Cup, Asia Rugby D1, Rwandan Genocide Memorial 7s, MLR Regular Season concludes

Africa Gold Cup

Recap: More than pride is at stake here, first place at the end of the round-robin passes go, collects 4 years of WR funding straight to Japan, while second place enters the repechage. Last week Namibia beat Uganda, while Morocco tied with Zimbabwe, hence the table looks like this:

This week: Tunisia kicks off their Gold Cup campaign this weekend in Namibia, while Morocco hosts Kenya. Both games are on Saturday (23/6), both games kickoff at 15:00 (UTC), there should be a stream, which I'll share on twitter (@BTCBlurandski). Namibia is a heavy favourite, while Kenya should win, but given Morocco's strong away performance last week it could be close. Even more so when you consider that the Simbas (Kenya) have names five uncapped players in the touring squad, two starting, and three on the bench.

Asia Rugby Championship Division 1

Division 1 is the second tier of rugby in Asia, with he Asia Rugby Championship consisting of Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea, with a promotion/relegation challenge against the winner of D1 (bar this year, where Japan was replaced by Malaysia for the purposes of Rugby World Cup 2019 Qualifying. This year Division 1 consists of just the Philippines and Singapore, due to Malaysia moving up, and Sri Lanka dropping out, so they're playing a two-legged playoff on the 23/06 and the 26/06 (both matches kick off at 15:00 UTC). Singapore are newly promoted to Division 1, having yo-yo'd back from been relegated in 2016. The last two matches between the sides were in 2015 and 2016. Singapore lost the former 20-17, and won the latter 28-24. It looks like it could potentially be another close series this time. 

Rwandan Genocide Memorial Sevens

This is the 6th edition of the Memorial Sevens, and it is taking place in the 30,000 seater Amahoro National Stadium, which functioned as a UN protected site in the genocide. It takes place on Saturday, and 12 teams are participating, and increase of four from last year. There are 10 local teams and two guest teams (Mbarara University, Uganda and Okapi Goma, DR Congo). Last year's champions Thousand Hills are returning, and so are the losing finalists Mbarara University. Last year the event was preceded by a 'walk to remember' from the convention centre to the stadium.

June Internationals

Georgia plays Japan in Toyota, the stadium where they'll take Wales next year. They lost to 2019 pool rivals Fiji 37-15 last week (having kept it close up until half time). Given that Fiji v Georgia will very likely be the automatic qualification decider for 2023 next year (third place in the pool gets automatic RWC qualification), Georgia should be looking to make a statement this week. While you may be expecting a brutal Georgian pack grinding out a win against Japan you'd be mistaken. The Georgian pack, which is traditionally one of the best in the world looked pretty weak against Fiji, and there's been some doubt raised over the capability of their forwards coach. Meanwhile the Georgian U20s have been producing some wonderful backs over the past few years (as seen at the U20 Championship in France), and while up until the past few years Georgia has struggled to get any backs into a full-time environment, now quality Georgian backs (Tamaz Mchedlidze, 25, Agen; Vasil Lobzhanidze, 21, Brive (already with 34 NT Caps!); Merab Sharikadze, 25, Aurillac) are being scouted by the Top 14, while the rest of the players play in the professional Didi 10 in Georgia (and potentially soon Kontinental Rugby). As a result Georgian back play can be a thing of beauty. Given the level of skills in the Japanese team this match has the potential to be one of the most entertaining matches of the international break, it's my personal match of the week. Georgia has won one out of five matches versus Japan, with an average net point differential of 5.2 points. When a stream is available I'll post it on my twitter. Kicks off at 13:45 (UTC) on Saturday.

Fiji v Tonga is the final islander match of the summer. Fiji are the definite favourites given that they beat Georgia, who narrowly beat Tonga, but any islander match is great fun to watch. The match should be streamed on World Rugby's website. The two teams have met 90 times, with Fiji winning 61 times to Tonga's 26 (3 draws)

Major League Rugby

It's the final regular season round of Major League Rugby this week, Utah take on Houston at home, while San Diego Legion host Glendale Raptors. The first tie-breaker is PD, however it's hard to see past Utah beating Houston, and no-one bar locked in number two seed Seattle has come close to them set far, and they've looked much the same team without their Eagles.

That's all that's happening this week across Tier 2 & 3, if there's anything I've missed, or you'd like me to write about, please contact me on twitter @BTCBlurandski.

Weekly wrap-up, week ending: 18/06/18

Hi all, I hope that this will function as a quick round-up for all of the slightly less covered rugby events of the week, of which there has been an awful lot.

Germany beats Portugal to win a two-legged tie vs Samoa

After the Rugby Europe eligibility debacle Russia was declared Europe 1, and Germany was to play the Rugby Europe Trophy winner (Portugal) for the privilege of being Europe 2. In what can only be described as a pretty dire match Germany won 16-13 (full match here). Truth be told the difference was probably made by Germany having their Wild Rugby Academy players back, while Portugal was in disarray due to not having many foreign players available and two of their leading clubs relegated to the third tier due to a mass brawl, which lead to the players from that club going on strike. I would recommend putting this a few videos below watching paint dry on your youtube playlist.


African Qualification for the Rugby World Cup kicks off

This weekend saw the beginning of the Africa Gold Cup (the Three Quarters podcast did an excellent preview). This year it consists of Namibia (24 in WR rankings), Kenya (28), Uganda (37), Tunisia (42), Zimbabwe (44), and newly promoted Morocco (38). With regards to RWC qualification, first place gains an automatic berth in Pool B against New Zealand, South Africa, Italy, and the Repechage winner. Second place wins a berth in the round-robin repechage in the autumn.

The first game of the round were Namibia hosting Uganda, which was a comprehensive victory for Namibia 55-6. Nothing overly special went on in the match, but a replay of both games is available here, should you want to see it. The second game was a 23-23 draw as Zimbabwe hosted Morocco, it was fairly entertaining, but should either side get through to the Repechage you can't imagine that they'd trouble Canada (although give the next item...)

Namibia is in the driving seat with five table points. Zimbabwe and Morocco possess two points apiece.

Canada Crush(ed)

I'm really not sure what to say here. The formerly premier T2 nation just got utterly humiliated at home by Russia, in front of 6,000 paying victims. The final score was 20-43, and Canada were utterly outplayed in every aspect, even when the Russians were down men in the bin. Full replay here. While Canada had a few full-time pros 'injured' (people have cast doubt on the authenticity of their absences), but considering that this summer series was meant to be a warmup for Canada's repechage challenge in the autumn, it has not gone well, Personally I reckon that if it consists of Germany (29th in the world), Canada (22), Kenya (28), and Hong Kong (21) then it could be a really close-run affair.

With every cloud comes a silver lining

The silver lining the the embarrassment of a summer series came in the form of Canada U20s completing an aggregate win over the USA U20s 82-62 over the two tests. This will be the third time in five years that Canada participates in the U20 Trophy (due to be hosted in Romania this year with Samoa, Romania, Canada, Uruguay, Portugal, Fiji, Namibia, and Hong Kong playing). The bad news however is that over time their performance in the competition has got worse, with their 6-10 year average position (15.8) being 1.4 places better than their 1-5 year average (17.2).

Canada has really struggled to convert top 20 finishes at youth level into senior performance, fingers crossed that Vancouver and Ontario MLR franchises come to fruition.

Czech Republic v NZ

In the latest of several high profile matches in Czechia (the last being Czech Republic v the Barbarians last November), the Czech Republic national team and U20 team played a New Zealand Ambassadors XV (assembled of New Zealand players based in Europe) in the now annual match. The U20 team got slaughtered 108-0 (at least Canada didn't have the worst loss of the week), but the senior team won 23-15. The crowd was reportedly in the region of 6,000. This is the fourth consecutive year that the event has been held, and the crowd is growing year on year.

Brief news:

Rugby Americas North Championship: Trinidad & Tobago beat the USA South 34-33, after USAS(?) led 27-12 at half time. There was some doubt whether T&T would have the funding to participate, but it looks like the money will be released imminently. [Correction 20/6/18: T&T has pulled out of the RAN Championship following funding not being released.]

MLR: NOLA edged Utah 43-46 to finish their season, but it was not enough to secure a playoff place. Glendale smashed Seattle 33-11 to confirm 1st seed, with Seattle 2nd seed. SD won perhaps the most important game, in front of 3000 fans, 31-17 against Austin to guarantee themselves 3rd or 4th seed. The regular season wraps up next week with Utah v Houston, and SD v Glendale.

Coverage not included: 

1. The USA beat it's first T1 nation in the form of a weakened Scotland in front of around 11,000 fans in Houston. The full match is available here (geoblocked to the UK), and 10 minute highlights are available here. Martin Pengelly did an excellent write-up of what this means in the Guardian.

2. The WR U20s Championship concluded with France beating England before a sellout of around 20,000. 7 minute highlights are here. From a Beyond The Cartel perspective Georgia achieved their best ever placing of 9th, and will return for a fourth consecutive appearance next year. Had they scored one more try versus South Africa they would have finished in the top four. A bright future lies ahead.

3. England lost again against the not-too-long-ago T2 nation South Africa. Why do I put myself through this? Answers on a postcard please.