USA Rugby released the rest of the 2018 schedule for the Women’s National Teams down through the Girls’ High School All-Americans (read more). On the one hand, it’s placating to see all of this movement; on the other, where are the GHSAA 15s?
The GHSAA 15s will assemble in December for the new North America Four tournament, but it appears to be the only program without a summer fixture. That omission is a deviation from the previous three summers, when a variation of east and west, U16 and U18 teams have played Canadian counterparts. Summer 2017 was the first time the GHSAA 15s played the Canada U18s (instead of a provincial side).
The GHSAAs will be holding an expanded 7s camp for the Can-Am Futures tournament – and that is a great addition to the schedule – but again, that excludes 15s players.
Is the dialing back reflective of Atavus’ support? The company made the GHSAAs possible and pumped a whole lot of life into the program. Emilie Bydwell played an important liaising-type role, an employee of Atavus and head coach of the GHSAAs. But since accepting USA Rugby’s Women’s High Performance General Manager position in November 2017, it doesn’t appear anyone has filled Bydwell’s role at Atavus. We’ve seen dwindling support elsewhere and are looking into it.
I had a coach say that one of her players received an invitation to a Women’s Collegiate All-American camp – obviously different from the GHSAAs but similar in terms of program visibility – and asked if it was for real. “Is a ‘Collegiate All-American’ a thing?”