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The Island again showed why it is sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½â€™s spiritual home of rugby by celebrating the past, present and future of the sport on a vibrant afternoon Saturday at Bullen Park in Esquimalt.

The current was represented by the 2016 Rio Olympics-bound and world No. 3 Canadian women’s sevens team, which conducted a clinic for middle-school girls’ at Bullen.

The past was embodied by former Canadian internationals such as John Graf, Eddie Evans, Kevin Wirachowski, Jon Thiel and former World Cup captain Morgan Williams, as the assembled golden oldies on this sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Classics squad accounted for more than 550 combined career caps. They took on their capped U.S. Eagles counterparts from years past in an exhibition masters game at Bullen won 28-7 by the Canadians.

A sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Classics player of particular note for the Rio-bound women’s sevens players was their Olympic team coach John Tait, a lock who earned 37 caps during his own international playing days. For once, they got to critique his performance.

The future was the sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Bears and Prairie WolfPack in a Canadian Rugby Championship fixture, won 25-17 by the WolfPack. The summer Canadian competition, featuring top developmental talent, is the highest standard of domestic senior men’s competition in sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ and is designed to give national-team selectors an idea of what is coming down the pipe. It features the sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ and Prairie teams, along with the Ontario Blues and Atlantic Rock.

The sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Bears starting lineup Saturday included UVic Vikes players Kevin Leask, Guiseppe Du Toit, Doug Fraser, Crosby Stewart and Ollie Nott with Port Alberni’s Cody McClary in reserve. Du Toit and Nott have played for sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ U-20.

The defending-champion WolfPack defeated the Bears 27-21 in the opener for both clubs this month in Calgary.

With the Olympic debut of sevens less than one month away in Rio, that thrill-o-matic version of rugby was on ample display in the Victoria International Youth Sevens tournament which ran Friday and Saturday at UVic’s Centennial Stadium and Wallace Field. More than 40 elite boys’ and girls’ U-18, U-16 and U-14 squads from sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½, the U.S., England and New Zealand took part. sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ Gold won the boys’ elite U-18 division with a 24-19 victory over Durham from England in the final.

In Salt Lake City, sa¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ beat France 29-10 Saturday to win the Women’s Rugby Super Series. Canadian victories earlier were over the U.S. and England.

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