Sevens players at odds with Rugby Canada

A Rugby Canada deadline for disgruntled sevens players to sign contracts and report to training has come and gone with no apparent movement.

“The players are unanimously united in their stated position to keep the men’s 15s and men’s 7s (teams) separate like the other top 11 rugbyplaying nations in the world,” said Melvin Reeves, the lawyer representing the sevens players.

Thirteen members of the national sevens program are in the second week of boycotting training by a centralized player pool that features players from both the 15s and sevens teams.

Rugby Canada announced plans in August to centralize a group of 40 to 50 men under contract “to maximize the development of Canada’s men’s national team players.”

But it has clearly failed to sell the idea to the sevens players.

In the past, the two teams essentially have trained apart in Langford, B.C., with separate coaches — with some 17 carded athletes in the sevens squad and up to 30 non-carded players in the 15s — although there has been some movement between the two. Canada’s top 15s talent plays professionally overseas.

In essence, the reorganization was an admission that Canada does not have the depth to run the two programs separately — and also that Rugby Canada has to focus more on the 15s program to maintain badly needed World Rugby funding.

In spreading funding over a larger pool or talent, some players are getting more money and some — in the sevens group — getting less.