Twenty-four members of the Iroquois Roots Rugby team helped bring women’s rugby to West Brant for an inter-squad match at Walter Gretzky Park on Saturday, May 2, 2026.
An Indigenous-led program, Iroquois Roots Rugby works to promote the sport to First Nations Youth in Ontario.
Melanie Squire co-founded the program alongside her daughter, Meagan Wilson, in late 2017 before officially bringing it to fruition in 2018.
“We had very humble beginnings, we had maybe two or three kids, but we kept pushing along. When the pandemic hit, we were the only ones offering programming because we could still make it work being three metres apart. I think because we kept going, we just continued to grow.”
Noting that all of their programming is free, with the exception of the $30 fee for the seniors, Iroquois Roots Rugby offers non-contact flag rugby for U6, U8 and U10 players, as well as contact rugby for U12 girls, all of which fall under their Mini program.
The club also offers junior competitive programming, including U18 boys 7s, U14, U16 and U18 girls 7s, and U18 Girls 15s.
“I believe we have about 75 kids in Six Nations that do our Mini program. This is also our first year for 15s, and we have both U18 and senior women,” said Squire. “We also have our junior 7s programming which is what we started with. That’s our bread and butter and the program is quite big now. We even host our 7s tournament every year and 2026 will be the fourth annual for that.”
Held in partnership with the Shellard Neighbourhood Association, the match was designed to promote women’s rugby in the West Brant community.
“We’re from Six Nations and we have just two fields there on the reserve, and as you can imagine, it’s really, really hard for us to book anytime with field lacrosse,” said Squire. “And now that we’re growing faster than we can handle, we’ve been in search of even just a piece of grass to train on. I ended up meeting Darryl Casey (Chair of the Shellard Neighbourhood Association) through a friend, and he very quickly said, ‘we have all these parks in West Brant, you’re more than welcome to them.’”
“He promoted the event through both the Shellard and West Brant Neighbourhood Associations and invited the community to come out and see the sport of rugby being played,” she continued. “Afterwards, spectators and kids can come up and speak to our players and then we’re going to run a little kids flag rugby clinic.”
Noting that the word rugby can often sound daunting, Squire said that not only is it a great sport to build camaraderie and self-esteem, but it’s accessible too.
“One of the things we do is an outreach program where we go to different First Nations schools and community events and we run free rugby clinics. We always tell that community, ‘What we love about rugby for our youth is that all you need is a ball and a buddy,’” she said. “And while we’re there, we always try to teach them the different things you do with just one rugby ball. We’ll play things like rugby golf and rugby volleyball, and we do all these other really fun things to show them that all you need is just a piece of grass, a ball and a buddy.”
The club also leaves equipment behind to support ongoing play.
“We leave rugby balls in every community that we visit, and if they have a recreation leader, we’ll also spend some time with them and share all the fun things you can do with the ball,” said Squire. “We’re always trying to keep the sport happening even after we’re gone because it has all the great things about sport wrapped into one.”
Casey later said that he was excited about the partnership and what it meant for the community.
“Today is the beginning of a wonderful partnership between the Iroquois Roots Rugby Club and the Shellard Neighbourhood Association to try to bring rugby to West Brant for both males and females,” he said. “Any opportunity to build sport in West Brant and to involve the community is something we’re always going to jump on, and we would love for the Iroquois Roots Rugby club to have a home here.”
“Mel has already agreed to come back and do free clinics for the community which I think is great for a couple reasons. Number one, I hope the residents will get more involved and want to join the club, and number two, as a neighbourhood association, this is a great way to introduce a sport that is well known throughout the world, to our youth,” continued Casey. “You know, a lot of these players will go on to play rugby in high school and university, and I think this is just a great opportunity for them to learn the sport before they even get to high school. And if you think about it, we have kids that are learning hockey and baseball starting at five-years-old… why not learn rugby too?”
He added that he’s also happy to see the parks in the neighbourhood get utilized.
“With all the development that’s happened, West Brant and Shellard Lane have so many parks and we should be using what we have,” said Casey. “This park is not used as much as we would like it to be so this is such a perfect opportunity. I just love everything about this partnership and we’re really looking forward to helping the rugby club.”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
