Tag: Canada

Branching Out: Lions on Tour

Branching Out: Lions on Tour

We are now just days away from the first match of the 2021 British and Irish Lions Tour of South Africa. Starting with a Test against Japan at Murrayfield, the Lions will then fly to South Africa, where they will face the 4 South African URC teams (Bulls, Stormers, Lions and Sharks) and South Africa A, along with a 3-Test series against the Springboks.

Taking place every 4 year, the Lions Tours cycle between the 3 nations who made up the old Tri-Nations: New Zealand, South Africa and Australia. But what if they looked to break this cycle and tour somewhere else? Honestly, I can’t see it happening anytime soon, but I thought it would be fun to look at some of the other potential tours.

France

Why travel all the way to the Southern Hemisphere when you have such a strong rugby nation just the other side of the channel. When you look at the usual matches you would find on a tour, France is one of the only other nations that can provide the same itinerary, with an established league full of world class talent.

The earl matches of the tour that would historically be against Super Rugby franchises could instead be against a selection of Top 14 teams, who like their touring counterparts will have just completed their domestic season. And of course France would certainly be able to provide a solid opposition in a 3-Test series. That in itself could be the tour, but it would also be easy enough to bring in Italy or Georgia as a one-off Test as part of the tour, perhaps the opener like this weekend’s match against Japan.

Japan

I mentioned that there was one other nation who currently has an established domestic league full of World Class talent, and that is Japan. While it may not get the level of attention as other competitions over here, the Top League certainly attracts its fair share of internationals and could provide sufficient opposition for midweek matches, with a 3-Test series against the Brave Blossoms. And if you wanted to throw in another slightly easier Test, well Hong Kong are currently ranked 22ⁿᵈ and could fill the spot.

The Americas

Now this is where things get interesting, and this would certainly be a tour, as the Lions look to travel to the Americas.

Argentina would be the opposition in the 3-Test series, but the tour would start in the North, with matches against the USA and Canada, and potentially even an “MLR All Stars” team, before travelling South and facing nations like Brazil, Chile and Uruguay.

From a perspective of growing the game, I can’t help feel that a tour like this has some legitimate merit, which is why it will likely never happen in a sport where money comes first.

Pacific Islands

Finally we come to one that would recognise the oft-ignored nations who have historically given us such great rugby moments, as we send the Lions to the Pacific Islands.

For the Test series, I wouldn’t look to lift any one nation above the others, but instead have 3 Tests against a Pacific Island equivalent, made up of all the best players from the Pacific Islands. These players would also be away from their respective clubs and national teams (if also involved in the tour) in order to give them maximum time to gel together. And as for the midweek matches? Well we are about to see the formation of 2 Pacific Island Super Rugby franchises—Moana Pasifika and Fijian Drua—so they would be in, while the other matches would be against Samoa, Tonga and Fiji, just minus the players called up to the combined Pacific Island team.

Would we see some of the most attractive and physical rugby ever on show, with crowds of fans who adore the game? Yes. Will the money-hungry executives let this happen? I doubt it.

rugby british and irish lions badge no background

Do any of these tours sound interesting to you? Are there any other’s you would suggest?

Keep an eye out on here for my thoughts from each of the Lions matches on this year’s tour. I’m not 100% sure yet exactly what format this will be in, while I also can’t guarantee exactly how quickly they will be up due to the myriad other sport on that I will be trying to fit around my job. But it was the last tour that really saw me start writing on here with some regularity and saw the first growth of this site, so I intend to cover the tour as thoroughly as possible.

The RWC2019 Debrief: Canada

The RWC2019 Debrief: Canada

Welcome to the RWC2019 Debriefs. The World Cup is now over and a new 4 year cycle begins, but the first stage of any cycle should be looking back at how things went – what went wrong and what went right – before looking on to how things go for the next cycle to ensure qualification to RWC2023 (if they haven’t automatically qualified) and to make sure they enter that tournament in peak form.

I will be going through these debriefs alphabetically, so today I will be casting my eye over Canada.

RWC2019 Qualification

Canada failed to win a 2-legged playoff against the USA to become Americas 1 for the first time in World Cup history. They then went on to lose the Americas 2 spot by losing both legs of the Americas Repechage playoff to Uruguay, but eventually topped the table in the final repechage tournament to take the 20th spot in Japan.

2019 Form

2019 was not looking good for Canada heading into the tournament. A 56-0 win against Chile was their only victory in the Americas Rugby Championship, where they finished 5th. They came bottom of the Pacific Nations Cup with away losses to the USA, Fiji and Tonga, before losing once more to the USA in a final warm-up match.

The Debrief

  • Pool Stages (5th in Pool B)
    • Italy 48-7 Canada
    • New Zealand 63-0 Canada
    • South Africa 66-7 Canada
    • Namibia C-C Canada

This was always going to be a difficult tournament for Canada with 2 of the favourites for the tournament found in this pool, but the huge loss to Italy showed just how far this team has fallen over the years.

Throughout the tournament, the defence just wasn’t good enough, with players dropping off tackles with regularity and allowing their opponents to build up big unassailable leads before Canada were even able to get into the game. Unfortunately Typhoon Hagibis caused a cancellation of their match against Namibia, which they would have been targeting before the tournament, but their prior performances suggest that they may have struggled to get a result here.

There were some silver linings to the clouds, though. Though they may have found themselves 40-0 within 30 minutes against South Africa, they rallied well to make the remaining 50 minutes a contest, despite substitute lock Josh Larsen being sent off shortly before halftime. Fly half Peter Nelson controlled things as well as possible under the circumstances and the players did manage to create chances – especially against Italy – but just failed to convert them.

Looking Ahead

The next few years are vital for Canada. This was all-but certainly the last World Cup for a number of key players, including star winger DTH van der Merwe, centre Ciaran Hearn and all 3 scrum halves that were in the squad and these roles must be filled. There are some big names still there in Tyler Ardron of the Chiefs, Taylor Paris of Castres, former Newcastle lock Evan Olmstead and Seattle Seawolves’ Jeff Hassler, as well as Nelson, who recently left Ulster.

What they need dearly though is the next generation of stars coming through. Luckily, the introduction of Major League Rugby could be just what they need. A large proportion of the squad are already playing for the Toronto Arrows or other MLR clubs, with a handful of players based in Europe and Ardron in New Zealand. With big name players making their way over to the league, the quality of rugby should just continue to improve and that can only be good news for the national team. Ideally, they also need to make sure that they are getting more talent into the top flight European leagues to make sure that they are used to playing the top quality players in order to compete as strongly as possible against Tier 1 opposition.

RWC2019: Players to Watch – Pool B

RWC2019: Players to Watch – Pool B

We are just days away from the start of the Rugby World Cup and we now know the players who will be on show. With the 31-man squads finalised, it’s time to start taking a look at the squads and looking at who will stand out during this tournament. In 2015, Nehe Milner-Skudder made his all Blacks debut in August, before going on to be a star of the tournament and make the tournament dream team, along with Japanese fullback Ayumu Goromaru, who definitely wasn’t known to the masses before the tournament.

With so many people who aren’t die-hard rugby fans set to watch the tournament, or many whose knowledge is maybe limited to their own nation’s players, I decided to do something similar to my Players to Watch in the Six Nations article, and expand that to each team of the World Cup. While I try to watch as much rugby as I can around the world, you’ll see that even I have blank spots as I select some players that may be bigger names in their teams, but they still may be lesser-known names to the wider public.

Journey to RWC2019 series:

Who are you looking out for during the tournament? Today, we’ll look at Pool B:

New Zealand

Ngani Laumape was going to be my pick here until his shock omission, so I have instead chosen to look at Sevu Reece. I made mention of Nehe Milner-Skudder earlier in the article and he is basically the Milner-Skudder of the 2019 All Blacks squad, having only made his debut in recent months. With pace, power and footwork, Reece looks the real deal and comes into the tournament having been the top try scorer in the last Super Rugby season.

South Africa

The first 2 rounds of Super Rugby made it clear that I had to pick to Herschel Jantjies. The Stormers scrum half did me some help in my fantasy team this year but even I wouldn’t have imagined his international career would begin with 3 tries in 2 Rugby Championship games and a draw against New Zealand in Wellington. Capable of controlling the game well enough to lead the team, he is such a danger with ball in hand if given too much space. Between him, Faf de Klerk and Cobus Reinach, head coach Rassie Erasmus is spoiled for choice at 9.

Italy

While I have to mention Gloucester’s Jake Polledri who I rate highly, I am going to the backs again here with my selection of Matteo Minozzi. The fullback missed this year’s Six Nations through injury, but proved himself to be a potent attacking talent in the 2018 tournament with 4 tries in 5 games. Part of the rebuild going on at Wasps this summer after moving from Zebre, Minozzi will be looking to make up for lost time. Expect him to run riot against Namibia and Canada.

Namibia

This was the hardest of the 20 teams competing to pick by a country mile. Reynaldo Bothma was going to be my pick here until he recently announced his retirement – I really hope there was no pressure from Harlequins affecting that decision – so in his absence I have picked Aranos Coetzee. The prop gets a selection here by virtue of his experience of playing at a relatively high level, having played for Racing, Brive and the Cheetahs all in top tier leagues while also featuring for South Africa’s U18s team back in the day. An experienced prop will be invaluable during the tournament.

Canada

Canada are a team that have really struggled for success in recent years, but if they are to have any success in the tournament, D. T. H. van der Merwe will surely be involved. The winger bizarrely struggled to get any time at Newcastle Falcons but has excelled at the Scarlets and in 2 spells with Glasgow. Internationally, he has scored 38 tries in 57 caps and has started every game at the last 3 World Cups, scoring 6 tries – including 4 in the 2015 tournament.

I’m running a fantasy rugby league for the World Cup on the Rugby Magazine website, and you are all invited to join! Simply follow this link and use the Unique Token: b6c1e40d48e6

Will you be picking any of these players in your squad?