Club Championships, Mystic River, Jackman, CRC 7s, JWC, Tier 2/3 Cups and More

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NEW YORK, NY – It was a slow news weekend in the Rugby News and Transactions department. However, there was plenty of championship action to cover in the USA. Along with those matches there were tournaments involving Tier 2/3 nations worth reporting on along with some upcoming tournaments. So let’s not waste anymore time and begin the Global Rugby Update:

News & Transactions:

Top 14: Bayonne secured promotion back to the Top 14 for next season after beating Aurillac 21-16 in the ProD2 play-off final on Saturday… Grenoble announced that head coach Bernard Jackman has agreed to a two-year contract extension which keeps him at the club until 2019. In other news from Grenoble, the club confirmed that former Leinster hooker Aaron Dundon will join as forwards coach next season.

USA Rugby: The 2016 Mens and Womens’ Club Championships took place at Infinity Park in Glendale, CO, this past weekend. The results for each division were as follows and to congratulate all those teams, their pics will be spread throughout this piece:

• Men’s Division I – Austin Blacks 33-45 Mystic River
  
• Men’s Division II – Tempe Old Devils 54-21 Detroit Tradesmen
  
• Men’s Division III – Faifield Yankees 41-33 Euless Texans
  
• Women’s Division I – Seattle Saracens 36-19 Chicago North Shore
• Women’s Division II – Life West 66-20 Wisconsin

World Rugby: As sevens training squads are announced by nations ahead of the Rio Olympics, World Rugby will release the information. The first to list their squad is Fiji, click here to find it.

The weekend’s fixtures:

PRO Rugby: Heading into the eighth week of action in the inaugural season, Denver snuck by San Diego by the slimmest margin possible. We will have a match report out in a sort while.
Here are the results:
Sun – 5 Jun 2016
Denver 24-23 San Diego

Penn Mutual CRC 7s Invitational: This weekend was the final event on the college rugby calendar for this academic year. It was the College Rugby Championship 7s Invitational sponsored by Penn Mutual. The tournament is organized and sponsored by the same people that created the Varsity Cup. It was a historic win for University of  California – Berkley, as they became the first school to claim the Varsity Cup in 15s and the CRC Cup in the same year! Cal beat UCLA 31-7 to claim the Pete Dawkins Trophy for the fourth year in a row! Life University are the 2016 Women’s CRC Cup after they defeated Lindenwood University, 19-10. Look for Luke Bienstock’s full report.

Top 14: The never-ending regular season finally came to a close this weekend. With relegation already decided, it was all about making the playoffs and/or securing a spot in the Champions Cup for next season. For added tension, all the matches kicked off simultaneously on Sunday. Last year’s finalists Clermont and Toulon secured semifinal berths and will wait the winners of next weekend’s quarter-finals. Clermont secured first place after thrashing La Rochelle, although any threat to their top spot disappeared with Montpellier‘s defeat at Racing 92, who secured fourth place with their win. However, because of that Montpellier loss, Toulon were able to leapfrog them into second place after their bonus-point win over Bordeaux-Begles. Toulouse going into the weekend were locked into fifth place and that is where they finished after defeating Grenoble. Finally, Castres rounded out the play-offs by defeating Stade Français at home, but even though Bordeaux-Bègles couldn’t snatch sixth place on the final day they have still qualified for next season’s Champions Cup after finishing seventh. In the less relevant matches, Agen defeated Oyonnax and Brive crushed Pau.

Here are the results:
Sun – 5 Jun 2016
Agen 23-19 Oyonnax
Brive 46-10 Pau
Castres 35-14 Stade Francais
Clermont-Auvergne 57-8 La Rochelle
Grenoble 14-53 Toulouse
Racing 92 40-25 Montpellier
Toulon 44-3 Bordeaux-Begles

The JWC is the yearly World Cup held for U-20 teams of the top tier rugby playing nations. Georgia qualified for it by winning last year’s Junior World Trophy, the second tier competition. This year’s tournament is being held in Manchester, England. For those looking to watch the action in the USA, the JWC can be seen using the Watch ESPN app on your Roku, Firestick and other devices or on ESPN3.com. This week sees the start of pool play as France take on Argentina, South Africa battles Japan, Australia does battle with Scotland, Wales and Ireland renew acquaintances, New Zealand and Georgia meet, and finally England clash with Italy.

Nations Cup – The 11th annual World Rugby Nations Cup will be held in Bucharest, Romania for the tenth time in a row. It will be played between 9 and 18 June. Normally it is run alongside the World Rugby Tbilisi Cup in Georgia but due to Georgia’s tour of the Pacific Islands in June, the Tbilisi Cup will not take place this year. Instead, the Nations Cup will feature six teams split in two pools of three, where the three European teams play the other three teams. All fixtures will be played at the 5,000 capacity Stadionul National de Rugby. The other teams in the tournament are Namibia, Spain, Emerging Italy, Uruguay and the Argentina XV.  The tournament kicks off this week with the Argentina XV taking on Spain. Uruguay faces Emerging Italy and Namibia plays Romania.

Here is the schedule:
Fri – 9 Jun 16
NC: Argentina XV – Spain
NC: Uruguay – Emerging Italy
NC: Namibia – Romania

Rugby Europe Sevens Grand Prix Series: The 2016 Rugby Europe Sevens Grand Prix Series consists of 3 legs,  Moscow, Russia (4/5 June), Exeter, England (9/10 July) and Gdansk, Poland (16/17 July). England and Wales have been replaced as Great Britain 1(Royals) and 2 (Lions). This weekend they were in Moscow battling it out. Here are Rugby Europe Sevens Grand Prix Series standings after this weekend’s action.

2016 Rugby Europe Sevens Grand Prix Standings
Points After Leg 1
Russia – 20 points
France – 18
Great Britain 2 – 16
Germany – 14
Great Britain 1 – 12
Georgia – 10
Spain – 8
Portugal – 6
Italy – 4
Belgium – 3
Poland – 2
Lithuania – 1

The Asian Rugby Championship: which is similar to the ENC (European Nation’s Cup) but with 5 divisions with the 3 most dominant teams, the tri-nations of Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan in the top division. There are 4 teams in division 1 and 2 then division 3 is broken up into East, Central and West with 3 teams each before we finally get to division 4 with 7. Believe it or not this is allegedly streamlined from previous years where it was just 5 divisions and 5 teams in each. This weekend in the Top 3, Hong Kong won big against South Korea to secure a second place finish.

Here are the results:
Sat – 4 Jun 16
Top 3: Hong Kong 41-15 South Korea

Sudamerica Rugby: Formerly the SAMC now just Sudamerica Rugby, is the same as the ENC – except it’s South America, a minor detail – and it has 4 divisions featuring 15 teams. It is the battle to find the 2nd best team in South America with Argentina the firm number 1. The top division is called the Sudamerica Rugby Cup division and features Argentina‘s B team, Uruguay and Chile. There are 3 divisions after that known as Divisions A, B, and C. This weekend there was a Sudamerica Rugby Cup division match as Chile were steamrolled by Argentina.

Here are the results:
Sat – 4 Jun 16
SR Cup: Chile 12-87 Argentina

Africa Cup: The Africa Cup 2016 will be the sixteenth edition of the continental tournament that involves the best African national teams, organized by the Rugby Afrique, formerly known as the Confederation of African Rugby (CAR). Given their superiority, the South African national team has rarely participated in most tournaments. The four times the SARU has participated, they sent either a U-23 team or amateur side, and went on to win it. Beyond South Africa, there are up to 27 rugby countries in the Cup with the national participants in the two divisions with each division divided into three groups (1A, 1B, 1C, 2 West, 2 East, and 2 South), with promotion and relegation. In 1A action this weekend Kenya will travel to Kampala to face Uganda in the first match of the Elgon Cup. The Elgon Cup is held annually and contested between the rugby teams of Kenya and Uganda. The competition and the cup are named after Mount Elgon, a mountain on the border of the two countries. The men’s and women’s teams of these countries compete for their respective Cups on a Home-and-Away basis. The mens’ competition has been rolled into the 1A matches for both sides, so the match will be both a RWC qualifier and an Elgon Cup match. In the weekend’s action, Kenya comfortably won the first leg of the Cup with ease.

Here are the results:
Sat – 4 Jun 16
1A: Uganda 10-48 Kenya

Rugby Americas North: Another regional tournament in full swing is the Rugby Americas North (formerly the North America and Caribbean Rugby Association or NACRA) Championship. The RAN Championship is for the countries in North America and the Caribbean. RAN has 2 zones with top level (championship) and a bottom level (cup). Each Championship zone has 3 teams while the Cup Zones have 4 each. The Zones are regionally divided, so there is a North Zone and South Zone. USA Rugby competes in the North Zone Championship division. The USA is represented by the USA South Regional all-star team, in order to develop talent and make the competition a much fairer one. This weekend in the North, the Bahamas fell on the road to Bermuda.

Here are the results:
Sat – 4 Jun 16
North: Bermuda 30-13 Bahamas

2016 Currie Cup qualification: The tournament is a competition between which will be played between 9 April and 23 July 2016. It will feature all fourteen South African provincial unions plus the Welwitschias from Namibia and will also serve as a qualifying competition for the 2016 Currie Cup, the 78th edition of South Africa’s premier domestic rugby union competition. Nine teams from this competition will play in the 2016 Currie Cup Premier Division, while the remaining six teams will play in the 2016 Currie Cup First Division. Round eight’s fixtures began with Eastern Province falling to the Sharks, then the Griffins fell big to the Blue Bulls, the Pumas took down the Golden Lions, the Griquas remained in first place by winning against Free State and finally the Leopards came up short against Western Province.

Here are the results:
Fri – 3 Jun 16
Eastern Province Kings 26 – 34 Sharks XV
Sat – 4 Jun 16
Griffons 28 – 57 Blue Bulls
Pumas 35 – 24 Golden Lions XV
Griquas 44 – 31 Free State XV
Leopards 34 – 43 Western Province

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