A lot of positives coming out of the latest men’s XVs announcement, the key European players have committed to the tour, players like Ardron, Olmstead, Quattrin. Matt Beukeboom is back in the mix, Matt Oworu is healthy, Cole Keith and Cali Martinez are back, Nic Benn wrapped up his NPC season and is available. To top it all off Kevin Rouet, the women’s head coach, has been added to the coaching staff.
Canada finished on a strong note at the U20 Challenger Cup defeating Brazil 61-24 and claiming 5th place. Host Chile won the tournament defeating Belgium. Canada started the tournament with a big win over Namibia but fell to Belgium and Portugal before their final match against Brazil. Canada weren’t far off the pace to win the tournament, small improvements in decision making, discipline, technical skills and execution could have seen them in the final. As far as individual athletism they matched up with any team in the tournament.
Portugal came out quickly and put up 12 points in the first 6 minutes, it was 15-7 at the half. The 2nd half again saw Portugal score quickly and it was 28-14 with 5 minutes left. Canada had a strong surge at the end of the match led by UBC #8 Liam Kinghorn but they came up just short of tying the match. Canada place 3rd in their pool and will play Brazil on October 17th in their placement match for 5th/6th in the eight team tournament.
Canada were leading at the half 7-6 but came off the rails in the second half as they left their focus in the change room at halftime. Two yellow cards and a slew of mental errors made it difficult to get any momentum in the second half. It started with a casual wave at a pass from a defender that led to a yellow card, then defenders forgot to focus on the ruck and the Belgium player said, thanks very much, picked the ball up untouched and jaunted in for a try. Next was a penalty awarded to Canada at the Belgium 22, the kicker put the ball directly into goal and a key possession was lost. It was mental error after mental error leading to penalties for Belgium, tries and another yellow card for Canada. Then panic mode hit as the scoreline increased and time ticked away, more errors, running the ball out from the 22 instead of clearing it, a double skip pass that’s intercepted and run back the length of the field for a try. It wasn’t that Belgium was a much better team, Canada self-inflicted much of the pain on itself in the second half. It will be interesting to see how they come out against Portugal in their next match, the championship is gone, but they can battle for a 3rd place finish. Canada face Portugal on Monday, October 12th.
It was one way traffic for most of the match as Canada ran in 15 tries and added 10 conversions. It was 52-6 at the half and Canada kept Namibia off the score sheet in the second half. There were a lot of positives from the match, Canada were winning the collisions, the off load game was working well and there is obviously some strike power in the starting back three as they scored seven tries. Perhaps the most satisfying is they kept Namibia out of the try zone, Namibia did have some possession inside the Canada 5 metres but strong team defence and some stellar individual defensive efforts kept Namibia from scoring a try.
Canada’s first match in the U20 Challenger Cup will be Friday against Namibia. The tournament is being held in Santiago, Chile. Currently the team are assembled in Toronto, and will fly out Tuesday, not giving them much prep time once they arrive in Chile. The tournament schedule is posted below. We’ll provide updates on live streaming when it’s made available. You can follow their Instagram account for updates as well. The live stream will be at rugbypass.tv
It was a tense game with an equally tense finish, USA bashing the line with time expired, Lucas Rumball imposing himself at the breakdown to dislodge the ball and Liam James kicking it out to end the match. Canada looked good in the first quarter, they went ahead 12-0, they looked in full control. USA turned it around in the 2nd quarter with a try and penalty goal, 12-10 at the half. USA went ahead on a penalty to start the second half but Canada ended the 3rd quarter with their 3rd try, by Jesse Kilgour. Canada then held on in the 4th quarter just giving up one penalty. It was 3 tries to 1 for Canada with USA kicking 3 penalties to keep it close. At one point in the 3rd quarter it was 11 handling errors for Canada to 2 for USA. Canada made it difficult for themselves but in the end they claimed the victory.
It was a better performance by Canada, a -16 loss this year compared to -53 last year against Fiji. Canada didn’t make it easy on themselves going down 7-0 in the first 30 seconds and 14-0 in the opening five minutes. Canada did show some composure after that and put together some phases with Mason Flesch crossing the line for a 14-7 scoreline which held until 23 minutes. A prop dropping a pass gave Fiji a counter-attack opportunity which they finished off with flair, 19-7. A scrum penalty gave Fiji their next chance, finished off from a lineout play, 26-7. Canada got one back before the half, Sion Parry, on the outside scored, 26-17, as McMullin had slotted a penalty in before that. Not a bad result for Canada, again errors had gifted the opposition scoring tries, a blocked box kick, a dropped ball, a scrum penalty all leading to Fiji tries. McMullin looked solid, Parry had a try and a poach, Jones was managing the game well when Canada had possession. The scrum started going backwards when Steeves came off due to injury. The lineout was hit and miss, the final stat for the match was 67% lineout success for Canada, not good enough yet.
Not much to say, the game was over by the half. Takoda McMullin had some good moments and scored the first try. Izzak Kelly had a few strong runs. Canada gifted a couple of tries to Japan from simple errors. Japan dominated the scrums and lineouts. Disappointing overall, the last two results against Japan were -42 and -27, this -45 speaks for itself. The match commentary is below from last night and the Rugby Canada summary article published this morning.
The men’s XVs team are in Japan for three matches in September, return home to catch their breath, maybe get in a BC Premier match or two for some of the players, then off to Europe for matches November 7th, 14th and 20th. They play Georgia in Tbilisi on November 7th, then Hong Kong in Chambery, France on November 14th, and finally Romania on November 20th in Bucharest.