Open letter to the Canadian rugby community from Allen Vansen

As the international rugby landscape for both Men’s 7s and 15s gets increasingly competitive, Rugby Canada must evolve to address the current realities of Canadian rugby and our ability to be competitive now and in the future.

After extensive review, and consultation with our coaching and technical performance staff, Rugby Canada determined that the best opportunity to become more successful in both our Men’s 7s and 15s program is to operate in a centralized training environmentwith a larger pool of playersjointly focusing on core rugby physical and skill development.  The strategy wasfully reviewed and supported by World Rugby’s High Performance advisors.  These changes reflect the direction and prioritization that Rugby Canada’s Board of Directors have provided to Management.
 
Information about the changes was shared with the players on August 8th, 2018, explaining both the rationale – that this system creates the ability to support a larger and more competitive pool of players, and to leverage the expertise and experience we have in our coaches and performance staff, and the impact to players – that players will have individual performance plans depending on which code they will play in, and that teams, (7's and 15's) will retain separate head coaches and spend the bulk of their time preparing separately for upcoming competitions.
 
This initiative has sparked important debate, and demonstrates the degree of passion for the sport of rugby that is felt by our dedicated players, our much-valued stakeholders, and our very important rugby community at large.  In response to questions and misinformation that have circulated, additional details about the Men’s centralized training program can be found here.
 
We strongly believe this is the best way to a strengthened model that will garner greater success for both development and high performance competition for both programs, and we will continue to work toward an outcome that sets our players and our programs up for success both now, and in the future.
 
Sincerely,
Allen Vansen
CEO, Rugby Canada