Balmy Beach Rugby Club’s U18 boys team heads to Scotland for March Break tour
By JESSICA SHACKLETON
It’s going to be a special March Break for the members of the Balmy Beach U18 Junior boys rugby team.
Thirty-six players from the Balmy Beach Rugby Club’s Junior boys program will spend next week on tour in Scotland.
When COVID hit, sports came to a halt and players weren’t able to have a special final season to their youth careers. Once sports were back in full swing, the club wanted to have a proper send-off for their Junior athletes, and decided that every two years the U18 team would travel on a tour. In 2024, the tour took place in Ireland.
Chris Kalbfleisch is the Balmy Beach Rugby Club’s Junior Director and coach of the U-18 boys team. Originally from Ottawa, he joined Balmy Beach in 1999 and has been involved in the Junior rugby program for more than 10 years.
“It helps retain players and it gives the players a really unique opportunity to end their Junior career at Balmy Beach and hopefully transition to a Senior career,” he said of the upcoming tour of Scotland.
“Tours are a really integral part of rugby. They’re a historical part where you travel to other rugby nations, meet other squads. As the cohorts age, they can finish their Junior time here and go on tour.”
As the Junior rugby program grows on the girls side, the club hopes to send the girls and boys teams on tour on alternating years, meaning a Balmy Beach U18 squad would be playing abroad every year.
March Break is the perfect time for the team to go, as it’s a good chunk of time off from school and gives the players a chance to train outside in the winter, said Kalbfleisch.
“It allows them to get ready for their high school seasons and their club seasons by training throughout the wintertime and doing dryland training and then going overseas, bonding as a team, playing harder opposition,” he said.
It’s a packed itinerary for the team, beginning with a flight into Glasgow this evening (Saturday, March 14) and then heading to Edinburgh and onto the pitch as soon as they arrive on Sunday to knock the rust off their overnight flight.
On Monday, the team will be at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium for a training session and tour of the facility from the Scottish National Rugby Union. Tuesday brings the first match of the tour against Selkirk Rugby Football Club, with whom Balmy Beach has a long history.
The next day the Balmy Beach boys will be checking off Scottish tourist experiences such as curling and Highland Games. On Thursday, the team has another match and are also doing a tour of Edinburgh Castle.
On Friday, the squad heads back to Glasgow for more training before one more game on Saturday. Later on Saturday, the team will watch a professional rugby match between Glasgow and Leinster from Ireland. Then it’s back home.
“We’re very excited. It’s going to be an ambitious schedule for them, and I think they’re going to be pretty tired when we get back,” said Kalbfleisch.
The club is bringing enough players for two teams, so everyone will get a chance to play and learn, he said. Meeting other teams and playing internationally is a special experience for any athlete.
“It’s one of the incredible things about the game of rugby is that it is international. There’s an old saying that says if you walk into a rugby club, you automatically have made 15 new friends. So international travel and play is embedded in the culture of the sport and that’s what touring is about,” said Kalbfleisch..
“It’s about being able to see other countries, meet people from different cultures, over a shared love of the game.”
The Balmy Beach Rugby Club also routinely hosts touring teams from the United Kingdom in the summer.
“We’re building so many relationships with teams and schools over in the UK, it’s fantastic,” said Kalbfleisch.
Before the team left for Scotland, they received tour kits designed especially for the tour. Each player gets their name and number and will be able to hold onto it as a special keepsake.
The final year of youth sports marks the end of something, even if players are continuing to play the game as adults. There’s nothing quite like the experience and it’s always remembered as they get older, said Kalbfleisch.
“A lot of these boys I’ve been coaching since they were seven. It’s a privilege to see them grow up into adults and see them develop and then go overseas with them and see how they express themselves as players,” he said. “We’ll go down to the pitch in the summertime and watch boys play that we had coached when they were six or seven and now they’re playing with the men’s team.”
Kalbfleisch is also happy to see the women’s side getting bigger and girls aging out of Junior and the playing for the Balmy Beach women’s team.
“It’s fantatsic that we’re bringing kids into the sport and they’re continuing to play,” he said. “With rugby, it’s a sport that accommodates lots of different styles of athletes. It’s got a position for every type of athlete. Within a large club like ourselves, it’s also got different teams for every athlete’s level.”
Balmy Beach’s rugby program has a long history, going back to 1955 when the sport of rugby (as opposed to football) began at the club, and the overall goal is to share the game and the members love of it.
For more about the Balmy Beach Rugby Club’s Junior programs, please visit https://balmybeachrugby.com/
