The magic of St. John’s continues. It seems to always go well for Canada when they’re playing in St. John’s. Canada played their best game, USA were woeful on the day – the bounces didn’t go their way, they couldn’t capitalize on two yellow cards, even HIA assessments didn’t go their way. Canada will take the 34-21 win, thank you, and hope they can do enough in next week’s encounter to keep their +13 advantage.
As expected from previous reports, many of the pros are not available for this series. That includes Tyler Ardron, Evan Olmstead, Tyler Duguid and Will Percillier. The reasons why are open to speculation, the importance of maintaining a pro contract, possible displeasure with Rugby Canada and the coaching staff, COVID related protocols, etc. Regardless they’re not available for this series so a chance for domestic players to step up.
We posted all 37 photos on our backup site nationalrugbynews.com but we’ve posted a few of the photos below. Also the lineups for the match are listed below.
We had a call into camp HQ today and what we heard wasn’t the most encouraging news for Canadian rugby fans. It appears as if Tyler Ardron and Evan Olmstead won’t be leaving Europe to join the team in St. John’s, Newfoundland. This would apply to others plying their trade in Europe as well such as Tyler Duguid and perhaps Will Percillier. There’s still some negotiation ongoing with Percillier’s club but it’s wait and see on that.
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. 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.
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.
It’s an interesting selection, first of all two players who weren’t even on the extended list announced two weeks ago are now on the team. Lucas Albornoz and Reegan O’Gorman, both second rows, weren’t mentioned in the extended list but now find themselves in the tour squad. It could have to do with their recent MLR performances or the fact two established second row players, Evan Olmstead and Kyle Baillie, are now “Unavailable for Selection”.
Rugby Canada announced the men’s Canada XVs long list (40 players) for the July tests in a very muted manner. The article originally wasn’t even on the front page just as a list under the men’s XVs program. The list wasn’t alphabetical but seemed to be listed in order of position. My guess is it came from the coach without any media interpretation which may be useful in getting an insight into Kingsley Jones’ thinking on selection.