Buccaneers Rugby Club, also known as the Ibex Buccaneers or the "Buccs", is an amateur rugby union club in Gibraltar. It is one of the four federated clubs of the Gibraltar Rugby Football Union (GRFU).
History
GRFU's domestic league began in 2010 as the Super IVs, made up of the union's four constituent clubs: the Ibex Buccaneers, Rock Scorpions, Europa Stormers and Straits Sharks. The league was later expanded to include other teams, among them Phoenicians, Marauders, Hercules and Bavaria. The Buccaneers Rugby Club is one of the four founding clubs of the Gibraltar Rugby Championship (GRC), whose by-laws date from September 2023. Under entry rules of July 2024, in which the club appears as the Bay Buccaneers, the four founding clubs could pool resources to enter a team in the 2024/25 season.
In 2023/24 the Buccaneers played in the GRC, then sponsored as the Umee GRC; their fixtures included an away match against Phoenicians in Cádiz. In March 2024 the IBEX Buccaneers were closing in on the league title with two rounds left, and in April 2024 the GRC semi-finals paired the Buccaneers with Marauders.
The championship, renamed the Umee Gibraltar Rugby Championship for commercial reasons, was contested in 2024/25 by Bavaria, Ibex Buccaneers and Ceuta RC. That season's fixtures included matches against Bavaria at Europa and against Federation Rugby Ceuta in Ceuta. A men's National Challenge for the four founder clubs, Buccaneers, Scorpions, Stormers and Sharks, was due to begin in February 2025.
Ground
The Buccaneers' GRC matches against Bavaria were scheduled at Europa, a shared match venue. GRFU uses a Rugby Clubhouse at the Europa Sports Complex for its events.
Teams and training
The club's senior men's team has played in the GRC. GRFU also schedules age-grade Buccaneers teams in the Trusted Novus Bank Youth Rugby Festival, a tag rugby competition played over seven rounds between the Buccaneers, Scorpions, Stormers and Sharks. After three rounds of the 2024/25 festival, in January 2025, the Sharks and Buccs were tied for first place in school years 4 and 5. As of January 2025, children who want to try rugby can turn up to the festival at 10:00 and join in.
GRFU invites adults, and parents of children interested in rugby, to contact the union about joining one of its clubs. Under the GRC's recruitment guidelines, a new player who approaches GRFU rather than a club is assessed by the union's rugby development officer and allocated to a club together with the GRC chairman.
Club life
The club uses the line "Love the game, play the game!"