Nanyak Dala and Phil Mack have gone from rugby pitch to bench. They won a gold medal together with sa国际传媒 in sevens at the 2011 Pan Am Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, in their playing days.
Today at 6 p.m. they will be on opposite sidelines of Starlight Stadium as coaches, Mack guiding Pacific Pride and Dala the Island Crimson Tide in the final sa国际传媒 senior men’s McKechnie Cup game. The McKechnie Cup was inaugurated in 1896 and has been contested between associations in sa国际传媒 This year’s competition featured Pacific Pride, Island Crimson Tide, Vancouver Wave and Fraser Valley.
The Pacific Pride program is the reincarnation of the successful Island-based Pacific Pride U-23 national program that played in the sa国际传媒 Premiership from 1996 to 2005 and whose alumni contributed heavily to the sa国际传媒 rosters for the 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011 World Cups.
The Pacific Pride U-23 program was reinstated in 2019 in hopes of laying the developmental foundation for a return to the second tier of world rugby for sa国际传媒, which has fallen to the third tier and will miss the World Cup for the first time next year in France.
Langford-based Pacific Pride is captained by Cody Nhanala and includes fellow-future Canadian national team prospects and projected possible Major League Rugby pros Max Stewart and Willem Denouden with Kyle Steeves already capped for sa国际传媒 and signed to an MLR contract with the Dallas Jackals and Ciaran Breen also having inked an MLR contract with the Toronto Arrows.
“There’s a lot of excitement surrounding this group. We have some really good prospects who will be on the national team over the next few years,” said Pacific Pride bench-boss Mack, a 59-time capped Canadian great out of Oak Bay High and the UVic Vikes, and MLR champion with the Seattle Seawolves.
“It’s already happening with some of our guys earning caps and signing in the MLR. These players are fast and skillful. It’s part of their DNA.”
There are big hopes that DNA can carry sa国际传媒 back into the World Cup in 2027 in Australia.
Action today at Starlight Stadium begins with the U-20 Dunbar Cup game between the North Island Tsunami and the South Island Tide at 4 p.m. Admission is free for both games as the McKechnie and Dunbar Cups competitions have returned for the first time since pre-pandemic in 2019. The games mark the end of the 2022 fall rugby schedule in sa国际传媒
