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[2014 EOYT] Canada vs. Romania 22/11/14

If my Eskimos don't win tomorrow I may lose the damage deposit on my apartment. Glad Crowley and the boys gave me such a crap performance as an early birthday present. These guys are jokes. Since they qualified for the RWC they have TWO wins, Portugal and Namibia. Maybe Canada should play against ENC 1B teams since that seems our current level. Our 15s team won't amount to anything if we can't get players developing and playing at a professional level. Thank god the 7s World Series is on again next month. Maybe they'll give Canadian rugby fans a team and effort to be proud of.....
 
18-9 loss, ouch. Virtually no positives to take from today or even the tour as a whole. One or two guys played well today, scrum was as bad as it looked in 2008. This team is poorly prepared, coached and captained.
 
I don't know about you guys but I'm not at all shocked by this. And I think the RC board should seriously think about making a coaching change. Assuming we can find an acceptable replacement through to the RWC I'm all for it. It might not necessarily be his fault, but this team needs a shake up in the worst possible way.
 
Agree, the side needs a shake up big time. But who replaces him?

It pains me to say this, but I don't think I would have Pritchard in my RWC Squad. He has clearly lost 2 steps and is no danger on the counter attack anymore. Even worse, his kicking has gone to ****e. If he was still a reliable kicker, I might still have him there but as it stands now, I wouldn't. If Evans is healthy, I think he can play at 15. Cudmore didn't do much either, but we have no one to replace him.

TBH, this game was truly awful, from the stream, to the game itself. The only positive I can think of is that our line out functioned well. We also missed Braid a lot more than I thought we would. At least the yanks have the excuse of missing virtually all of their starters for their tour, what's ours?
 
I don't know about you guys but I'm not at all shocked by this. And I think the RC board should seriously think about making a coaching change. Assuming we can find an acceptable replacement through to the RWC I'm all for it. It might not necessarily be his fault, but this team needs a shake up in the worst possible way.

Yeah, looks like our musings about the November tour of 2013 where these bizarre coaching decisions, lineups etc. and general lack of coherence from the side appeared have come fully to fruition.

I won't be foaming at the mouth if RC lets Crowley try and salvage this thing next year, but if there is a quality coach out there, I wouldn't be perturbed at a switch right now. Something is clearly VERY wrong with this side. Is someone like Clive Griffiths available? He's worked with the team and many of these players before, it wouldn't be a huge culture shock.

Either way KC needs a fantastic 2015 to stay on, two wins likely or a few narrow losses to the T1's and a big win over Romania combined with some solid games in the warm ups. I'm not going to say KC has been terrible the side he inherited in 2008 was utterly pathetic and he got some pretty good results from the side up until 18 months ago. But maybe he's taken it as far as he can, perhaps he's "lost the room" or is out of ideas.

Edit: I would probably have Pritch in my RWC side canadafan but I think it might be as a bench player. He is still reliable in defence and is better than any of the experiments back there a.k.a DTH and Braid.

There really aren't any excuses for this tour, there were some injuries but the players left weren't massive downgrades, it's hard to argue that Paris, Mack, Mackenzie and Evans would have made a massive impact, maybe Evans would have been helpful in the Namibia match ahead of DTH at FB.

Edit: On another note, I should give some credit to Romania so the Oaks fans on here don't think I'm totally crapping on ther side either. Once again they played to their strengths in the scrum and lineout, they kicked well and were decent in defence they certainly weren't spectacular but they were workmanlike and got the job done.
 
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An unfortunate outcome in a sea of poor outings. It is hard to imagine Canada doing well at RWC 2015 at this point and there seems to be a chance of going winless.

Just some musings from a fan:
- Canada's lineups over the past 1-3 years make no sense to an outsider. There is little consistency and it is never clear what is trying to be achieved. What is the point of Patrick Parfrey playing 10 for example? Team USA at least seem to have a somewhat consistent lineup.
- Canada has no identity. We seem to be trying to play a free flowing game, but they don't seem capable of executing this. We certainly aren't an intimidating physical side. It isn't clear what the strength of this team is. I've noticed domestic teams play a similar style at club level, but it doesn't translate that well.
- Our best players play the least important positions.
- Team lacks physically dominant players. Cudmore is the closest but he is old.
- Liam Underwood was looking like he could be the answer at 10 and his absence due to injury is really unfortunate.

Changes are needed in Canadian rugby at the grassroots level. I almost hope that some dreadful showings will lead to real change. I think only a winless RWC and consistent losses to USA would do this.
 
Are there many players who's stock went up this tour? I can't think of anyone's that went up dramatically but here are a couple slight ones and even this is a stretch.

Stock up slightly:

McRorie - Though he gradually played a little worse each game of the tour he's probably still ahead of White and especially Mackenzie in the pecking order at SH. Likely 2nd choice behind Mack next year, goal kicking was generally effective.

Wilson Ross - Didn't get a lot of game time toward the end but did fairly well when given a chance, likely looking on the outside come 2015 but may have a shot if there is an injury crisis.

Phelan - Between him and Hotson for starting beside Cudmore looked superior to Buekeboom.

Players who's stock went down is probably a lot longer of a list.

Edit: Is Crowley on contract to the end of the 2015 RWC? Knowing the board I'd be shocked if there is a change made unless a coach with an exceptional pedigree puts his hand up, they likely aren't going to want to pay him any money to sit at home for a year(unless the deal is set up in a way he doesn't see much if he's tossed).

As of now I see only a one win RWC, I do think on neutral ground with some decent officiating there will be a win over Romania though not sure it will be a massive margin.
 
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Gentlemen,

I didn't plan on posting on here but I couldn't let this game and the teams performance of late slide any longer. The past year has been very difficult for me to watch and I think we have not played up to our full potential at all but I think everyone here needs to broaden their perspective a little bit before getting the pitchforks out and torching Rugby Canada. I think the team has some issues right now but Kieran Crowley is not the problem and removing him won't make one iota of difference. Lets first be clear, the National Team is in far better shape then it has been in recent memory.

The year 2008:

Scotland 41 Canada 03
Wales 34 Canada 13
Ireland 55 Canada 0
Portugal 14 Canada 21

The year 2004:

England 45 Canada 5
England 70 Canada 0
Italy 51 Canada 6

Yep, I remember both those tours and going into it as a Canadian fan I remember watching and not thinking we had a chance to win but how high of a cricket score it would be? The team we have today is far superior to anything we could put on the field even as close as five years ago. Just in the past two years we have:

Pushed Scotland to the very brink (A game we arguably should of won)
Nearly beat Samoa
Acquitted themselves well with against Irish and NZ Maori sides while being forced to play severely understrength
Beat Fiji and Tonga and very nearly won the Pacific Nations Cup
Lost narrowly to Georgia and Romania twice in three very physically grinding games against two very good teams who have also beaten the likes of Samoa and Tonga in the past year, and in the case of Georgia, pushed Argentina to the very brink.
Beat the United States twice (once badly) to qualify for the World Cup.

So why can't we close out games?

1. Poor Scheduling/Prep Time

As far as I am concerned, the schedule the boys have been forced to put up with and the absolutely farcical tour schedule the IRB has generated for Tier 2 Nations is one of the main reasons we have faired so poorly as of late. The IRB and Rugby Canada Management (Who should share some of the burden) have severely undermined our ability to field a competitive team week in week out when we do tour because of this. We compress our schedules too tightly and we play too many games in too short of a time period which prevents our players from being fully prepared when they do show up to play a game. We also play too many games that are absolutely meaningless and do nothing other than line everybody elses pockets but not our own.

Why did we agree to play an RFU Championship XV a week before an international test against Namibia? An utterly pointless game that gave some of our players unnecessary knocks and only made our team more tired for a very difficult tour schedule.

Why did we play Namibia in Cowlyn Bay? An utterly stupid place to play a game... if the IRB wants us to play Namibia it should be in our own backyard, same goes for Samoa?

We play a pointless game against an RFU Championship XV, force the boys to travel to Colwyn Bay for a neutral venue game, force them to probably take a long ass train ride down to Southern France and play a fired up Samoan team, then fly across Europe to Romania to play a very capable and well rested Romanian team (most of whom train and play together year round).

This to me doesn't really sound like much of a recipe for success.

Likewise, last November's tour was even more of a crap shoot

The NZ Maori game, while it did line Rugby Canada's coffers, forced us to travel and play a rugby game in Georgia in as little as Six Days! Georgia has a 9hr time difference from Toronto btw. We then had to leave Tbilisi and head for Romania and play another intense match against a well rested opponent.

The pattern was equally similar for the Pacific Nations Cup in June of 2013.

The cold hard facts gentleman is we are playing too many games with too little preparation and too little rest which leads to our players being increasingly susceptible to injury and doesn't give them enough time to gel as a team. Firing the coach isn't going to change any of this. Between Canada and the United States I would say there are no other countries in the world who have to play with such a crap hand dealt to them by the IRB.

I think we have a better team than Romania and I also think we have a better team than Georgia, unfortunately we don't have the opportunity to prove it because nobody will come play us in Canada or the United States for that matter on our terms. I'd love to see a Georgian or Romanian team come to Canada or the US in November for a game, or heaven forbid a Tier 1 nation actually play us, but it ain't going to happen because the IRB/World Rugby (Whatever they call themselves ) won't let it happen.


2. Rugby Canada Push Towards Sevens

Another problem we are suffering from is that Rugby Canada has prioritized the Seven-a-side form of the game at the expense of 15's. We saw the results of this today with our Scrum and Set Piece being completely dominated. Also, some of the forwards look like they forgot how to ruck as every single line break we made was turned over by the Romanians, who play a very simple but highly disciplined game. The Romanians aren't flashy but they do the dark arts stuff well and don't make a lot of errors on Defense. They also kick the ball well and force us to make mistakes with it.

We have a group of Canadian players who are playing both Sevens and Fifteens and this has worked ok but I believe the weaknesses with this development system are starting to show. For one thing, we could have really used dynamic players like Harry Jones and John Moonlight out there today but where are they? Oh preparing for Sevens of course. We don't have the depth that other nations do so we are forced to pick and choose who we take where which has meant that the National Union has chosen Sevens over Fifteens (Because Sevens is where the money is at) even though Fifteens is far more popular and Sevens is really just a side show spectacle.

We also have no development money left for our Tight Five who are the weakest link in our entire team. Cudmore is good but he is nearing his end and the rest of the Tight Five is a big step down in quality from him. Truth be told, I absolutely hate Sevens and think it is weakening our National Fifteens Team. We have some dynamic ball carriers but we are unable to utilize them because we have no forward pack that is capable of setting a proper base for them.


WHAT DO WE NEED TO DO GOING FORWARD?

1. Invest in scrummaging and developing the tight-five, it's our biggest weakness and we need to rectify it immediately or we will continue to lose close games to the likes of Romania, Georgia, Italy, etc....

2. Cut out the pointless games and devote more time to preparation. We don't have a lot of preparation as it is but we need to maximize the amount we do have.

3. Play our best team every time we are involved in a Test. The best team should always be on the field, if that means playing less tests, so be it.

4. PLAY TO OUR STRENGTHS! We have a lot of very good ball carriers and dynamic players who can run the ball well and make a lot of yards. Our team has a lot of Athletes and we need to play to that strength. There was a number of times today when we were 50 yards out and they were going for 3 pts where I thought, "boot the ball in the corner and take a chance at going for the try." Would have been a preferred option. We aren't England and we don't have a Jonny Wilkinson. I want us to play a "Pacific Islander" style game and throw the ball around a lot more then we have been and not be afraid to run and gun.



We as fans also need to understand there are
NO EASY TESTS ANYMORE

Any team outside the Big Five (NZ, Aus, SA, Eng and Fra) can beat anyone else in the Top 20 on a given day if they are up to it. I consider all the Celtic Sides to be beatable if we show up to play and are given equal opportunity to prepare, same goes for Italy and Argentina. Every team is getting better and better every year and Rugby is getting very competitive at the top. I don't put much stock in IRB World Rankings as the rankings are much like the IIHF Hockey rankings and aren't really reflective of true national strength given the unfair tests schedules and double standards imposed by the IRB.
 
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I haven't been this discouraged with our NSMT since then end of our November tour 2008. This team is in complete shambles and only getting worse. I think it is optimistic to assume a win over Romania in the RWC. The backs, which has been our strength for the last few years, are completely without a plan. If someone can issolate just one example of back play, from the siht show, that show backs running into space or being given a pass while running a good line I'll buy you dinner. The scrum was shocking after Marshall went off. Why in H E L L didn't Crowley take the Tidybowl man out and put Woolridge in. It surely couldn't have gone any worse. After the second time he got folded in half and elevated right up and out of the scrum it was obvious to even a middleschool volleyball coach he wasn't up to the job. There wasn't a single individual performance out there that can provide even a glimmer of hope.

It's a sad day for Rugby in Canada. I think the whole setup needs a rethink and decisive action needs to be taken. There is no prospect of this team beating anyone in the top 20 for the foreseeable future.

In the Rugby Canada write up of the game this sentence sticks out to me.

These two teams knew what to expect from each other from previous meetings; it would be the powerful Romanian pack, against Canada's speed and dynamic attacking style

This is a complete load of nonsense. Except for the occasional touch by Hassler and DTH there is no speed and the word dynamic must have a very different meaning in Jeff Hull's world than in mine. I've watched high school teams with more dynamism in their back line than what was on offer today in Bucharest.

That's the end of my rant. I just can't believe what I have witnessed for the last 3 weeks.
 
Gentlemen,

I didn't plan on posting on here but I couldn't let this game and the teams performance of late slide any longer. The past year has been very difficult for me to watch and I think we have not played up to our full potential at all but I think everyone here needs to broaden their perspective a little bit before getting the pitchforks out and torching Rugby Canada. I think the team has some issues right now but Kieran Crowley is not the problem and removing him won't make one iota of difference. Lets first be clear, the National Team is in far better shape then it has been in recent memory.

The year 2008:

Scotland 41 Canada 03
Wales 34 Canada 13
Ireland 55 Canada 0
Portugal 14 Canada 21

The year 2004:

England 45 Canada 5
England 70 Canada 0
Italy 51 Canada 6

Yep, I remember both those tours and going into it as a Canadian fan I remember watching and not thinking we had a chance to win but how high of a cricket score it would be? The team we have today is far superior to anything we could put on the field even as close as five years ago. Just in the past two years we have:

Pushed Scotland to the very brink (A game we arguably should of won)
Nearly beat Samoa
Acquitted themselves well with against Irish and NZ Maori sides while being forced to play severely understrength
Beat Fiji and Tonga and very nearly won the Pacific Nations Cup
Lost narrowly to Georgia and Romania twice in three very physically grinding games against two very good teams who have also beaten the likes of Samoa and Tonga in the past year, and in the case of Georgia, pushed Argentina to the very brink.
Beat the United States twice (once badly) to qualify for the World Cup.

So why can't we close out games?

1. Poor Scheduling/Prep Time

As far as I am concerned, the schedule the boys have been forced to put up with and the absolutely farcical tour schedule the IRB has generated for Tier 2 Nations is one of the main reasons we have faired so poorly as of late. The IRB and Rugby Canada Management (Who should share some of the burden) have severely undermined our ability to field a competitive team week in week out when we do tour because of this. We compress our schedules too tightly and we play too many games in too short of a time period which prevents our players from being fully prepared when they do show up to play a game. We also play too many games that are absolutely meaningless and do nothing other than line everybody elses pockets but not our own.

Why did we agree to play an RFU Championship XV a week before an international test against Namibia? An utterly pointless game that gave some of our players unnecessary knocks and only made our team more tired for a very difficult tour schedule.

Why did we play Namibia in Cowlyn Bay? An utterly stupid place to play a game... if the IRB wants us to play Namibia it should be in our own backyard, same goes for Samoa?

We play a pointless game against an RFU Championship XV, force the boys to travel to Colwyn Bay for a neutral venue game, force them to probably take a long ass train ride down to Southern France and play a fired up Samoan team, then fly across Europe to Romania to play a very capable and well rested Romanian team (most of whom train and play together year round).

This to me doesn't really sound like much of a recipe for success.

Likewise, last November's tour was even more of a crap shoot

The NZ Maori game, while it did line Rugby Canada's coffers, forced us to travel and play a rugby game in Georgia in as little as Six Days! Georgia has a 9hr time difference from Toronto btw. We then had to leave Tbilisi and head for Romania and play another intense match against a well rested opponent.

The pattern was equally similar for the Pacific Nations Cup in June of 2013.

The cold hard facts gentleman is we are playing too many games with too little preparation and too little rest which leads to our players being increasingly susceptible to injury and doesn't give them enough time to gel as a team. Firing the coach isn't going to change any of this. Between Canada and the United States I would say there are no other countries in the world who have to play with such a crap hand dealt to them by the IRB.

I think we have a better team than Romania and I also think we have a better team than Georgia, unfortunately we don't have the opportunity to prove it because nobody will come play us in Canada or the United States for that matter on our terms. I'd love to see a Georgian or Romanian team come to Canada or the US in November for a game, or heaven forbid a Tier 1 nation actually play us, but it ain't going to happen because the IRB/World Rugby (Whatever they call themselves ) won't let it happen.


2. Rugby Canada Push Towards Sevens

Another problem we are suffering from is that Rugby Canada has prioritized the Seven-a-side form of the game at the expense of 15's. We saw the results of this today with our Scrum and Set Piece being completely dominated. Also, some of the forwards look like they forgot how to ruck as every single line break we made was turned over by the Romanians, who play a very simple but highly disciplined game. The Romanians aren't flashy but they do the dark arts stuff well and don't make a lot of errors on Defense. They also kick the ball well and force us to make mistakes with it.

We have a group of Canadian players who are playing both Sevens and Fifteens and this has worked ok but I believe the weaknesses with this development system are starting to show. For one thing, we could have really used dynamic players like Harry Jones and John Moonlight out there today but where are they? Oh preparing for Sevens of course. We don't have the depth that other nations do so we are forced to pick and choose who we take where which has meant that the National Union has chosen Sevens over Fifteens (Because Sevens is where the money is at) even though Fifteens is far more popular and Sevens is really just a side show spectacle.

We also have no development money left for our Tight Five who are the weakest link in our entire team. Cudmore is good but he is nearing his end and the rest of the Tight Five is a big step down in quality from him. Truth be told, I absolutely hate Sevens and think it is weakening our National Fifteens Team. We have some dynamic ball carriers but we are unable to utilize them because we have no forward pack that is capable of setting a proper base for them.


WHAT DO WE NEED TO DO GOING FORWARD?

1. Invest in scrummaging and developing the tight-five, it's our biggest weakness and we need to rectify it immediately or we will continue to lose close games to the likes of Romania, Georgia, Italy, etc....

2. Cut out the pointless games and devote more time to preparation. We don't have a lot of preparation as it is but we need to maximize the amount we do have.

3. Play our best team every time we are involved in a Test. The best team should always be on the field, if that means playing less tests, so be it.

4. PLAY TO OUR STRENGTHS! We have a lot of very good ball carriers and dynamic players who can run the ball well and make a lot of yards. Our team has a lot of Athletes and we need to play to that strength. There was a number of times today when we were 50 yards out and they were going for 3 pts where I thought, "boot the ball in the corner and take a chance at going for the try." Would have been a preferred option. We aren't England and we don't have a Jonny Wilkinson. I want us to play a "Pacific Islander" style game and throw the ball around a lot more then we have been and not be afraid to run and gun.



We as fans also need to understand there are
NO EASY TESTS ANYMORE

Any team outside the Big Five (NZ, Aus, SA, Eng and Fra) can beat anyone else in the Top 20 on a given day if they are up to it. I consider all the Celtic Sides to be beatable if we show up to play and are given equal opportunity to prepare, same goes for Italy and Argentina. Every team is getting better and better every year and Rugby is getting very competitive at the top. I don't put much stock in IRB World Rankings as the rankings are much like the IIHF Hockey rankings and aren't really reflective of true national strength given the unfair tests schedules and double standards imposed by the IRB.

Agree with many of the points being raised here, particularly the influence of 7s on the 15s team. Mixing the two doesn't seem optimal and I think many of the 7s players don't play hard in 15s as a result. They are very different games! I often hear about how good such and such 7s player is and when I see these guys in 15s they are unimpressive.

The weird and nonsensical road games don't help though I'd note that in some of Canada's wins their opponents were facing similar issues (Fiji, Tonga, Scotland).

In terms of the style of play I am just not sure if a loosey goosey style lends itself to a country in Canada's situation, particularly when we know that Canada will always be faced with mismatched lineups, odd game locations, lack of time practicing together etc. Doing the basics well and playing a bit tighter and more physical style might ensure a more consistent result in these situations. If you have to win 13-7 a lot then so be it. Having a ton of good outside backs and small fast loose forwards with no 10,12,1,2,3,4,5 just doesn't translate to wins.

Also I'm not sure why, but just watching various levels of Canadian rugby the culture seems to have erred towards a very loose and expansive style of game. Couldn't tell you why.

You seem a bit optimistic to me. I don't think Canada has much of a chance at beating Wales, Ireland, Argentina.
 
I think Kempistry had a fantastic point when he brought up our lack of identity at the moment. The expansive style that seemed to get going from about 2009- (June of) 2013, has seemingly disappeared. I think in large part that's due to a downgrade in half backs as the current combinations are clearly a downgrade to Fairhurst and Monro. Likewise the front five simply aren't up to the task of running a set piece game style ala Romania/Georgia/Uruguay and the scrum isn't even getting us own ball at this point. So where do we go from here?

A number of players are being over-exposed as well, Dala and Barkwill are exhibit "A" in this regard, both are good players to run out for 20 minutes maybe half an hour to provide a spark to the side, both are getting a little older and I'm not sure why they are seemingly now obtaining expanded roles. Likewise Pritch should be moved to the bench/spot starts for his final year of play, though for this tour the absence of Evans forced him on longer than the staff might have liked.

As Rusty said with the prop example the use of the bench is bizarre, Crowley seems pigheaded about changing combinations or substituting players that are clearly performing poorly. Even if Wooldridge hadn't have been better than Tieddemann it would have a least sent a message of accountability to pull off a player that had been performing terribly. It was the same thing at the ARC when he kept putting the Mackenzie at SH and McRorie at FH combo out there even though it was clear after half an hour it was a farcical failure.

There are players I would have liked to have seen more of, why wasn't Thorpe used more? He's played in a top flight league for the better part of a decade yet he's only coming on for twenty minutes when Dala clearly wasn't up to snuff. Wilson Ross could have come off the bench for a few minutes in this game, maybe he would have sparked some kind of energy. Wooldridge should have been on for Tieddemann at the 50th minute mark.

Ardron is now 0-7 as Captain of this side, I knew it was a bizarre choice when it happened, make him captain AFTER the next cycle and build him up, why throw him to the wolves when he's barely over 20 years old. Surely Cudmore or Buydens is capable of leading this team better.

Edit: @ Rugger, wasn't the 04 tour without professionals due to some kind of internal spat? Or at the very least the 70-0 debacle against England?
 
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Romania vs Canada 18-9 highlights:


I watched this match live and I think it's a good win for us ahead of the RWC. Otherwise, it was an ugly game and both teams seem worse in 2014 than they were last year.

Romania is not a spectacular team but we always play to our strengths and more expansive squads (Fiji, Tonga, Japan, Canada, etc) usually have a hard time playing their usual game against us. But Canada today was nothing special in attack and we were much better in the set piece, I think the only clear try scoring chance was our attack in the last minute of the match. Vlaicu had a bad match with the boot, otherwise the margin could have been bigger (but it's also true that Pritchard missed some easy kicks).

Canada's youth team also lost to Romania earlier today, the full match is here:
http://www.rugbytv.ro/2014/11/22/romania-canada-22-11-2014.html
 
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As little guy said you can't really play an expansive style without very good players at 9, 10 and I'd argue to a lesser extent 12 as well, where we absolutely stink. Not to mention you need a decent platform in the first place. New Zealand play a fairly loose style at times, but their forwards are absolute monsters from a physical perspective.

Canada has decent forwards, but which Canadian forward can physically dominate their opposite number? Sometimes it is that simple.

Also it's very unfortunate that Underwood has been so injured, he looked like the real deal.
 
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Romania vs Canada full match:


I think you guys are a bit too harsh on your team. Canada was bad yesterday but it's not easy to play against Romania, our style usually shuts down more expansive teams. Regarding the scrum, what did you expect? Romania is one of the best scrummaging sides in the world right now and teams like Georgia (who have a huge number of Top 14 props) or Scotland could not resist us in the set piece either.
 
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Any team outside the Big Five (NZ, Aus, SA, Eng and Fra) can beat anyone else in the Top 20 on a given day if they are up to it. I consider all the Celtic Sides to be beatable if we show up to play and are given equal opportunity to prepare, same goes for Italy and Argentina.

I agree with much of what you say in this post but this sentence I have to take issue with. I just finished watching NZ v. Wales. We could play that Wales team 100 weekends in a row and the we would never win a single game. The skill gap at so many positions is so monumental right now that any expectation that we beat Wales, when they field their best lineup, is unthinkable. The problem isn't the coach, the problem is the entire structure of Rugby in Canada. We simply do not develop enough players to have a sufficiently deep talent base to ever have a hope of competing with top countries. Look at the success of our age grade programs over the last 7 years and that will tell you all you need to know about our current crop of players. The best we can hope for is to run Scotland, Italy, Samoa reasonably close if they don't field there strongest lineup and beat the Namibia's of World Rugby on a regular basis.
 
Don't really disagree with you Rusty. I think the gap in the depth of our squad is quite glaring right now. The tenacity and physicality of our forwards is severely lacking while the finesse in our backs lacks consistency. We are just always one step behind now in virtually every match we play.
 

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