from Rugby Canada
Canada’s Men’s Rugby Team’s roster for La Vila International Rugby Cup has been named by Head Coach Kingsley Jones. The 32-player squad will travel to Villajoyosa, Spain this November for the new four-team tournament featuring Canada, Spain, the United States and Brazil.
There’s been a fair bit of commentary on social media about the competition. Canada comes across as one of the winners as they get to play 3 games in August/September against higher ranked teams. Japan don’t seem thrilled with it as they are stuck with two lower ranked teams in their pool. The other pool is Fiji, Samoa, Tonga so the best Japan can do is a final against Fiji, currently #10 vs #12. Neither Fiji or Japan get access to the remaining top 10 teams.
Canada completed their two match series with Tonga, losing by an aggregate score of 64-15 over both matches. There’s frustration building among fans with Rugby Canada unwilling to make any changes to the coaching staff. Popular rugby journalists, like Squidge and Bryan Ray, are starting to comment on the Rugby Canada inaction.
It’s not the result that would have been predicted pre-tournament. Scotland a Tier 1 rugby nation, a Six Nations member, were heavy favourites to win and get promoted back to the JWC U20 championships. It didn’t happen, they ended up finishing 3rd and USA 7th. Spain and Uruguay were the top two teams with Spain just edging Uruguay in the final.
Rugby Canada has confirmed what the Tongan rugby union had already stated, Tonga will play two World Cup warm up matches against Canada. The Tonga pre-World Cup schedule is Australia A, Fiji, Samoa, Japan, Canada, Canada.
It was 22-14 for USA at the half and they did all the second half scoring to win 39-14 and win on aggregate 82-35.
The USA opened the scoring 5 minutes in when their blindside flanker, Cameron McAlpine, beat three would be tacklers and scored. It was a try that shouldn’t have happened at this level and as the 82 point aggregate hints, defence was an issue for Canada. Noah Flesch saw a gap and tied the score up at 7 minutes, it was converted and Canada had a 7-5 lead. USA kicked a penalty at 30 minutes and were in the lead 8-7. Canada took back the lead with a score out wide by Craig Mitchell-Herman at 32 minutes, 14-8, and there was a glimmer of hope as the aggregate was now reduced to 16 with the conversion.
Canada lost to Spain 21-9 at the U20 level to finish their tour to Uruguay. They lost their first game to Uruguay 21-16. The roster for the two matches was the same except for the injury to starting lock Sol Jacques.
Canada lost to host Uruguay 21-16 in the first match of their tour, they’ll play Spain on May 13th before returning home. Canada were behind 7-6 at half time.
Rugby Canada have been fairly tight lipped about the U20 program this year with the team already in the air to Uruguay before announcing the team selections and matches. The first question many will have, are the games live streamed, and the Rugby Canada announcement doesn’t specifically tackle that question but does say, “Results from the matches in Uruguay will be posted to Rugby Canadas social media accounts”. That doesn’t sound promising but we’ll see if anything develops over the next week.
It was an interesting match that changed abruptly in the second half when subs were made. Canada Red were ahead 26-0 at the half and looked to be on their way to a rout but in the second half Canada Black fired back and were on the ascendancy when the final whistle blew. The final result according to our tally was 38-29, Canada Red winning the first half 26-0 but Canada Black winning the second half 29-12.