Club Overview

Located in the heart of of Kitsilano in Vancouver BC, the Meraloma Rugby Club has teams for all ages and abilities.  Whether it be competitive or social, mens or womens, junior, mini or even older, the Lomas have a team for you.

The Meralomas have three Senior Men's teams, one Women's team, a large Junior and Mini program offering rugby to a wide range of youth, and the Legends, who are the Lomas very own "old boy" team. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OiCy0sQuHM

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"Once a Loma, always a Loma"

Head Coach:

Christiaan Esterhuizen

Cape Town, South Africa

Our Head Coach, Christiaan, or Essie as he is affectionately known, comes to us from South Africa where he has been the coach of Rhondebosch High School and the University of Cape Town. During his time with Cape Town, he won the 2019 University Championship, defeating UBC on the way to the title.

Forwards Coach:

Jebb Sinclair

New Brunswick, Canada

Jebb represented the Canadian National Senior Mens Rugby team in over 50 International matches including the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand and the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England.  Aside from International appearances, Jebb has previously played for London Irish in the English Premiership, the Stormers in South Africa, and also became the second Canadian international to win the Currie Cup during his time at Western Province.

Backs Coach:

Johnny Ball

England

John is the attack and backs coach at the Vancouver Wave and Meraloma Rugby Club. Originally from the north of England, John moved to Vancouver in 2018 where he began his coaching career at the Lomas. John played 1stXV rugby Sedbergh School and enjoyed club rugby at Bournville, Ampthill and Moseley before retiring at age 23. John lives in Vancouver with his partner Tess and works as an architect

Skills Coach:

Jay Younger 

Sydney, Australia

A dual code Australian, comes to us having just finishing his playing career with stops at semi professional clubs, Eastwood and Sydney.  Not at all new to the amateur game he helped start a rugby club in Queensland that made a grand final appearance in their 3rd year in the competition

Club Details

MERALOMA CLUB HISTORY

The Meraloma Club is an amateur athletic organization founded in 1923 by Bill Edwards and 11 other swimmers from the local Kitsilano area of Vancouver, Canada.  They initially called their club the Mermaids. Canadian Football, Rugby Football and various sports soon followed and as the club grew to include sports other than swimming, the members developed a new name, suggested by Douglas Hand.  He took "Mer" from the original Mermaids, added "al" from alpha, "om" from omega (the first and last letters of the the Greek alphabet) and "a" from "always" that was interpreted to mean "Mermaids, first, last and always".  Later, the permanent Club motto found favour: "Once a Meraloma Always a Meraloma".  Thus, the Mermaid Athletic Club became the Meraloma Club.

The club even developed their own songs.  For several years in the late 1920's and early '30's a women's swim team was part of the club.  Women's sports returned to the club in 1973 after a 45 year absence, at first in the form of field-hockey and eventually, soccer, basketball, volleyball and touch football.  The club currently has 350 active male and female members and 100 associates in 8 sport sections.

Eric Whitehead, former sports writer for the Vancouver Province Newspaper wrote:

"Speaking from my experience ... I know of no other organization that so epitomizes the special spirit and character of a community that has produced a far greater pro-rata share of outstanding athletes of national and international calibre than any other area in the nation.  Now, in these times of change, with all the swing back to participation sport at all age levels, the Meraloma Club stands as a time-tested model of all that is best in volunteer community sports establishments."

The Meraloma Club is housed in a 1923 Parks & Recreation vintage structure, on Connaught Park which it continues to renovate and maintain.  A Heritage Award from the City of Vancouver was earned in 1979 for preserving architectural integrity during renovations.