Canada Men’s XVs Autumn Tour – How is That Shaping Up
While many countries have released their test fixtures for the upcoming Autumn Tours, in Canada we’re left guessing and piecing together scraps of information from other sources.
A mere six years ago Canadian rugby fans would look forward to the Autumn tours when Canada would get to play the likes of Ireland, Romania and Samoa. Even five years ago in 2017 it was the Maori All Blacks, Georgia, Spain, and Fiji. Canada even won the Spain game. Four years ago Canada were fighting for a spot in RWC 2019 and so played the Repechage against Germany, Hong Kong and Kenya. They won those matches. 2019 was the World Cup. 2020 was cancelled due to COVID. 2021 after losing the 2023 World Cup qualifier against Chile, Canada were served Belgium and Portugal for the November tour. Canada split those matches.
2008 was really the last time Canada were offered a spot at the top table with the big boys in terms of Autumn tours. That year Canada played Ireland, Wales, Scotland on consecutive weekends, after being served Portugal as an appetizer to begin the tour.
What’s in store for 2022, well Chile #21 and Uruguay #18 have taken the place of Canada #23 in the Tier 2 tours, they are playing the likes of Romania #17, Georgia #13, Tonga #16. Canada are the appetizer now, going down to South America to play Chile before they head off to Europe. That game is scheduled for October 22nd according to Wiki, there’s good reason to believe Canada will get a second game down there against Brazil #27 the following weekend but that hasn’t been made official. Then Canada have a match against the Netherlands #28 on November 12th.
There was a game announced in the summer, Canada v The All Blacks XV for October 29th but if you check the All Blacks XV website now they only list the November 13th match vs the Barbarians on their Northern Tour.
Many were hoping for some sort of reset from the men’s national XV team after they failed to qualify for the 2023 RWC. There was hope of a new coach, new selection policies and player ID pathways, a reconnect with the European pros. That does not seem to be in the works, at the present time the Autumn tour looks to be the same coach, same selection and player ID, and quite likely the same players that featured from the summer matches.
Hopefully Rugby Canada will provide some clarification on the men’s Autumn tour in the coming weeks.