06/16/2026
WEST COAST WANDERS RUGBY CLUB RECEIVES SANCTIONING APPROVAL
As thousands of people make plans to head to Corner Brook this summer for the NL Summer Games, NL Rugby has awesome news that ties in perfectly with the games.
The West Coast Wanderers Rugby Club has been officially sanctioned for club rugby and their members have been working hard running practices and preparing young athletes as the host teams for the NLGames.
Steve Best is the driving force behind rugby in the Corner Brook area and has put a lot of passion and energy into creating what he hopes will some day be the Western NL Rugby hub.
Steve reports, “Thanks so much for asking me to say a few words about the West Coast Wanderers RFC joining the Newfoundland and Labrador Rugby Union as a member club - West Coast Wanderers RFC”.
Steve continued: I was introduced to the sport of rugby in level 1 in high school in the 1985-1986 school year here in Corner Brook. Gary Caines founded a rugby club in the school. Our Herdman Huskies high school team hosted incoming teams and played in St. John's and New Brunswick. We competed as Western NL at the NL Summer Games in Mount Pearl coached by Roy Lewis where I was captain of the Western NL team. Unfortunately the sport had been dormant in Corner Brook since about 1990.
I started playing rugby in St. John's in the Fall of 1989 playing on a junior tour with the Swilers to England, Wales and Ireland. I've played senior rugby with the Dogs and NL Rock and moved back to Corner Brook in 2011.
In the Fall of 2017 I received a message from a former club teammate about a group of people starting a touch rugby group here in Corner Brook and got in touch with the organizers. A co-ed touch rugby group started that year and has been running since.
Donald Mhlaba moved to Corner Brook in 2018 and joined our group. Don has years of experience both as a player and World Rugby level 2 certified coach and is an extremely valuable asset to our program. In the summer of 2019 we formed the West Coast Wanderers with our competitive men's group at George Street Festival 7's (GSF7's in St. John's). We've competed for several years at this tournament.
In June of 2023 we hosted "Rugby Day in Corner Brook" with a dedicated group of volunteers through the Participaction Community Challenge. We held youth clinics to introduce youth to the sport as well as a senior ladies exhibition match and a men's exhibition with the West Coast Wanderers vs the Swiler's RFC.
The NL Summer games here in Corner Brook gives us a great platform to introduce the sport to athletes to compete at home this August. We have a number of certified coaches here in Western NL as a result of the NLRU hosting a world rugby level 1 clinic held in January. Thanks so much to Roxanne Butler and Morgan Lovell from the NLRU as well as the board for this opportunity.
We look forward to building this program with a dedicated group of volunteers over the next several months and competing at the NL Summer Games with teams out of Corner Brook for the first time in 38 years!
There are lots of exciting opportunities to follow thanks to our inclusion as a member club with the Newfoundland and Labrador Rugby Union. We look forward to the future for the sport of Rugby in Western NL.
Samantha Pomroy moved to Corner Brook a few years ago and quickly connected with Steve to continue to keep her hand in the Rugby as well as step up and volunteer to help establish the club and junior women’s teams.
Sam stated, "Establishing a sanctioned rugby club in Corner Brook is an exciting milestone years in the making. We have been a small group keeping the sport alive in this region since 2017 and I am over the moon that we now exist as an official club with the NLRU. Our hope is that we at the West Coast Wanderers are able to offer a new sporting opportunity for young athletes.
“I am particularly excited”, Sam continues, “that we will be able to offer girls and young women an opportunity to play a sport that has given me the chance to represent my community at the club level, my high school at the provincial level, and my province at Atlantic and National tournaments as well as an open tournament in Las Vegas. Rugby tournaments are some of the highlights of my days as a competitive athlete and I am looking forward to coaching and seeing these athletes develop their skills as they represent Corner Brook and the west coast. Some of them may go on to play at higher levels and, by having a rugby club here, we can give youth on the west coast a chance to develop skills in a sport played at the university level in Canada (as well as at the Olympics!) Overall, we are really looking forward to seeing rugby grow on the west coast and working with the athletes to build a robust rugby community here”!
NL Rugby’s Technical Director & men’s coach, Morgan Lovell is thrilled with the formalization and increased activity on the West Coast, “Congratulations to the Wanderers Club and the group of volunteer coaches and administrators in Corner Brook who have worked so hard to establish a club on the west coast of Newfoundland. We look forward to continuing to grow the game in the area.
