It wasn’t pretty and the result renewed questions on when Canada are going to make changes to the leadership of the men’s program. The team look demoralized and the intensity of a test match was missing, especially in the first 40 when Canada absorbed a 40-13 pounding.
The Rugby Canada press release calls it a “clinical performance”, it was anything but against a mediocre Belgian side with 11 uncapped players. Belgium’s recent wins were against Poland, Switzerland and Lithuania. Belgium weren’t even in the European Tier 2 championships this year, the Netherlands beat them out for that honour. This was Canada, trying to cling on to Tier 2 status, playing a Tier 3 rugby nation.
USA named their 30 player squad for 3 matches in July, a warmup game against the French Barbarians and the home and away World Cup Qualifier series against Chile. Of the 30 players 22 are from MLR (8 from European clubs) and interestingly, 13 of the 22 made the weekly MLR First XV list on one or more occasions.
Kingsley Jones has named his 30 players for the two tests this summer. The good news is that potentially 3 players who played for Canada West in the Coast to Coast Cup may get to represent this summer. We say potentially because Jones does have a history of selecting players on the long list and then they don’t get in the match day 23 over a series of games.
This is actually an improvement for Canada, replacing a Barbarians match with a full test match against a higher ranked opponent. Spain are ranked 15th, Canada are ranked 21st. Canada’s opponent on July 2nd will be 27th ranked Belgium.
The 32 players to travel to NZ for the Pacific Four Tournament have been named. Comparing the list to the team from the November 2021 tour, there’s one outstanding name missing and that’s the #10 Emily Belchos De Goede. She started at fullback in the first test against USA but then started at #10 for the second win against the USA and the win over Wales. She looked like the first choice for #10 going forward. Alex Tessier started at #10 in the first USA match and may be the first choice #10 now, although Taylor Perry (formerly Taylor Black) would be in the running as well.
Rugby Canada released their 58 player list for the East v West camp taking place this week in Guelph, Ontario. The RC press release is appended below. It’s interesting to breakdown the BC numbers.
The demand for Pacific Pride players among the MLR and 7s program means there’s a lot of new faces to start the second half of the 21/22 season. If you look on Wiki at the list of Pacific Pride 20/21 players, there has been a lot of movement. Moved to the MLR are: Foster DeWitt, Dewald Kotze, Nik Hildebrand, Liam Murray, Tyler Rowland, Mason Flesch, James O’Neill, Michael Smith, Siaki Vikilani, Josh Thiel. Moved to European clubs are: Kaden Duguid. Moved to the 7s program are: Thomas Isherwood, Brennig Prevost, Alex Russell, Brock Webster.
The Canadian men’s XVs team will end a horrendous year with one bright glimmer, a win against Belgium with 14 men. Michael Smith received a red card at the 17 minute mark and Canada had to play short for the remainder of the match. The play looked innocuous enough in real time, the ref didn’t pick it up but the TMO did after the fact. Smith’s shoulder made contact with a player’s head while the player was on the ground trying to wrestle the ball away from Tyler Rowland.
Canada were leading in the match 17-15 with time showing elapsed on the on-screen clock. The forwards were trying to run the clock down with pick and goes but when Conor Keys had a go, he hit the ground in an awkward position, the support was a fraction late arriving and Portugal won the penalty.