And so it begins. Off the kickoff Conor Keys receives the ball and gets rag dolled in the tackle by the England openside, Sam Underhill. Ben LeSage is first there but just can’t budge the loose forward, Corey Thomas arrives a bit later but the damage is done and it’s a penalty for holding on. This is a prime example of the importance of winning the contact areas and how it’s going to dictate the outcome of the match.
[ed. note Tokyo is 16 hours ahead of BC, times below are for Tokyo. A 9am start on Monday will be 5pm PT on Sunday.]
The schedules have been announced for the Rugby 7s events.
What is the prognosis of Canada making it through the RWC 2023 qualifying process after the weekend action? It’s too early to tell but the weekend results didn’t alter the opinion held by many, and backed by the ranking statistics, that Canada are ranked 3rd in the Americas qualifying process. A 3rd place ranking in the Americas (Argentina excluded as they’ve qualified already) would mean the repechage again, a repeat of the 2019 RWC qualifying.
With 2 weeks left there are 6 teams in the running for the 4 playoff spots. LA, Utah and Austin in the West and Atlanta, NOLA and NY in the East.
[ed. notes and reflections taken during the match]
Canada started well with a try at 4:20, how Canadian. Cooper Coats was the hero, taking a quick tap from a penalty, weaving through some defenders and finding an alert Ben LeSage in support who found Kainoa Lloyd on the outside with a perfect pass. Lloyd had some work to do as he got low and used his power to bounce of the defender. Peter Nelson gets a kudo as well for the clearance kick that had put Canada inside Wales 22 to start with. Two of the key players in that try don’t play MLR and haven’t recently played XVs on a regular basis in a league environment. Cooper Coats trains with the national 7s squad and Kainoa Lloyd with the Pacific Pride squad. The last time they showed up in regular competitive XVs was February 2020 when both were playing for James Bay in the BC Premier league, Coats playing #10 and Lloyd #13.
It was August 12 2006 when Canada and USA met in St. John’s, Newfoundland for the RWC 2007 qualifier. Canada went on to win that match 56-7 and go through as Americas #1. Ric Suggit was coach and Mike James and Morgan Williams were the player reps at the press conference. I remember it well, I had flown out from Vancouver Island for the week and stayed at the modest Memorial University residences to cover the match for BCRN.
There’s 3 weeks left in the regular season with some teams down to 2 matches left. LA and Utah continue atop the West division with Austin still in with a chance if Utah stumble in their remaining two matches. It’s looking a high probability of a LA and Utah 1/2 finish in the West. Utah play Atlanta and LA in their remaining matches, two tough games. Austin finish against LA and DC while LA have NOLA, Austin, Utah. LA needs to win 2 of those 3 matches to assure top spot.
Injuries have forced head coach Kingsley Jones to make 2 changes to the 30 player squad, he’s also named 2 extra players for a total of 32 on tour.
The pools were announced for the Olympic 7s, July 26-31 2021.
As expected it’s going to be a tougher journey for the men to make the QF than for the women. There are 12 teams in each competition, 8 make the quarter-finals. The top two finishers in each of the 3 pools plus the 2 best 3rd place finishers will go through.
Canada announced their men’s and women’s teams for the Olympics in July. Thirteen players are listed per team, with 12 selected for match day and 1 alternate. There’s no mention of who the non-playing alternate is on each squad. The USA women announced their roster earlier this month and identified an alternate plus two travelling reserves for a 15 player squad. The USA men haven’t announced their squad yet.