2014 Junior World Rugby Trophy

[profitius]

What's gone wrong with Canada?

 

[bakakumon]

Latest highlights

 

[bakakumon]

Some questions for the players

 

[usausa]

14-man Canada come from behind late to sneak past Hong Kong 33-30, Canada went down to 14 in the first half and were down for most of the match. Canada finish 7th, HK 8th.

 

[LittleGuy]

14-man Canada come from behind late to sneak past Hong Kong 33-30, Canada went down to 14 in the first half and were down for most of the match. Canada finish 7th, HK 8th.

Unbelievable, all that can be said was the even further disaster of relegation was avoided. Utterly pathetic performance, changes to the Juniour program must be made and a lot of these players stock has probably plummeted. One of(if not) the most disastrous Rugby Canada events of the last decade.

Nathan Yanagiya was the red carded player for punching, absolutely ridiculous in a game this important, could have relegated Canada to the "B" division, should be buying the rest of the team drinks at the hotel after they pulled that out of the fire.

 

[usausa]

Unbelievable, all that can be said was the even further disaster of relegation was avoided. Utterly pathetic performance, changes to the Juniour program must be made and a lot of these players stock has probably plummeted. One of(if not) the most disastrous Rugby Canada events of the last decade.

Nathan Yanagiya was the red carded player for punching, absolutely ridiculous in a game this important, could have relegated Canada to the "B" division, should be buying the rest of the team drinks at the hotel after they pulled that out of the fire.

There is no real "relegation to a B division", the JWRT is the B division to the JWC...I'm sure Canada's spot is secure really and if it came down to it, I'm sure they would beat the other NACRA teams to stay in. It's more the Asian, African, South American, European teams that play their continental championships to get in. At least, that's my understanding of it. Namibia finished 8th last year and were back again this year.

 

[usausa]

FINAL DAY RESULTS:
7th: Hong Kong 30-33 Canada
5th: Georgia 46-17 Namibia
3rd: USA 26-25 Uruguay
1st: Tonga 10-35 Japan

Ranking:
1. Japan *promoted to 2015 JWC
2. Tonga
3. USA
4. Uruguay
5. Georgia
6. Namibia
7. Canada
8. Hong Kong

Next year's venue still TBA.

Keep an eye out, in a month and a half is the JWC to be held in NZ!

 

[usausa]

Quick recap on matches:

Hong Kong 30(21)-33(10) Canada

HK
T: 11 Daniel Davidson (29'), 12 Joseph Dignan (36')
C: 14 Kevin Field 1/2 (29', 36'x)
P: 14 Kevin Field 6/7 (11', 19', 23', 45', 57, 62', 75'x)

Canada
T: 6 Reid Tucker (14'), 7 Lucas Rumball (70', 72')
C: 10 Adam McQueen 3/3 (15', 70', 73')
P: 10 Adam McQueen 4/5 (39'x, 40', 42', 54', 59')
RC: 14 Nathan Yanagiya (32')

Georgia 46(26)-17(0) Namibia

Georgia
T: 8 Vakhtang Amiranashvili (5'), 12 Giorgi Talakhadze (19'), 14 Murazi Giorgadze (54'), 6 Davit Papavadze (80')
C: 10 Revaz Jinchvelashvili 4/4 (6', 19', 55', 80')
P: 10 Revas Jinchvelashvili 6/8 (12'x, 15', 24'x, 29', 34', 38', 71', 74')

Namibia:
T: 13 Handre Bezuidenhout (50', 57')
C: 10 Chris Arries 2/2 (51', 57')
D: 15 Malan Kruger 1/1 (43')

YC: 7 Awie Thompson (C) (37')

USA 26(20)-25(13) Uruguay

USA
T: 14 Scott Dean (4')
C: 10 Ben Cima 0/1 (4'x)
P: 10 Ben Cima 7/11 (6', 12'x, 18', 20', 29', 35', 59'x, 66', 74', 77'x, 78'x)

YC: 15 Niall Barry (51')

Uruguay:
T: Igancio Dotti (38'), Diego Ardao (46'), Claudio Pena (52'), Rodrigo Bocking (75')
C: 10 Manuel Blengio 1/4 (39'x, 47', 53'x, 76'x)
P: 10 Manuel Blengio 1/1 (26')

YC: 10 Manuel Blengio (59'), 11 Andres Banchieri (78'), 6 Manuel Castro (80'), 8 German Kessler (80')

Tonga 10(3)-35(10) Japan

Tonga
T: 2 Haini Moala (63')
C: 10 Mosese Latu 1/1 (64')
P: 10 Mosese Latu 1/1 ('1)
D: 10 Mosese Latu 0/2 (22'x, 47'x)

YC: 6 Kisina Neiufi (41')

Japan
T: Penalty Try (32'), Shunta Nakamura (42'), Shuhei Narita (75'), Sota Oketani (80')
C: 10 Rikiya Matsuda (C) 3/4 (33', 42'x, 75', 80')
P: 10 Rikiya Matsuda (C) 3/3 (18', 57', 60')

 

[canadafan]

So a 14 man Canada side barely beat Hong Kong. I am sure RC will use that 'red card' as the reason for barely beating HK and play up the 'determination' of our boys for overcoming such self made difficulties. Where is the tournament next year? Shouldn't it be our turn to host it? We would probably get a good turn out for it in Victoria like with the ARC.

 

[LittleGuy]

So a 14 man Canada side barely beat Hong Kong. I am sure RC will use that 'red card' as the reason for barely beating HK and play up the 'determination' of our boys for overcoming such self made difficulties. Where is the tournament next year? Shouldn't it be our turn to host it? We would probably get a good turn out for it in Victoria like with the ARC.

Mark tweeted Mike Chu today asking if we were hosting it and he said it wasn't in the budget.

Agreed on the red card, guarantee that will be the excuse peddled out, even though it was a selfish and petty card to take in the circumstances. Another bizarro move by Rugby Canada they are charging $4 to watch the women's game this afternoon/evening on their stream channel. Truly bizarre, I might have popped on over and watched a bit as I did the other night for free but forget it for four bucks especially considering the quality of streams we've seen over the years.

 

[usausa]

Canada did well from 16-7 down at time of RC to charge back, although 30 points to HK leaves something to be desired. I'll look at the other sheets but today seems to have had an absurd amount of penalty shots at goal. USA's Ben Cima took 11 shots! 36 in 4 games today (12, 8, 12, 4)...
USA must feel ok with 3rd but certainly would've had a good shot at going up vs. Japan. Only 1 try to giving up 4 today is certainly concerning. The US looks like they only won today due to Uruguay's ill discipline. I mean Uruguay gave up 11 shots at goal, 4 yellows including 3 in the last couple of minutes to end the game 12 v 15, US must feel like it escaped and gifted the win.


I don't believe the IRB have released/determined next year's host for the JWRT. I would love to see it Canada (if they could find the finances) but I have a feeling it might be going back to Europe or Africa. Europe last hosted in 2011 (Georgia) and Africa 2009 (Kenya).

 

[usausa]

Points Leaders:
Revaz Jinchvelashvili Georgia 63
Ben Cima USA 58
Chris Arries Namibia 40
Rikiya Matsuda Japan 39
Adam McQueen Canada 38
Manuel Blengio Uruguay 37
Kevin Field HKG 34
Vakhtang Amiranashvili Georgia 20
German Kessler Uruguay 20
Mosese Latu Tonga 17
Patelesio Oneone Tonga 17

Tries:
Vakhtang Amiranashvili Georgia 4
German Kessler Uruguay 4
Wian Conradie Namibia 3
Matt Mullins Canada 3
Shuhei Narita Japan 3
Sota Oketani Japan 3
Seiya Ozaki Japan 3

Conversions:
Rikiya Matsuda Japan 12
Revaz Jinchvelashvili Georgia 9
Chris Arries Namibia 8
Adam McQueen Canada 7
Manuel Blengio Uruguay 5
Ben Cima USA 5

Penalties:
Ben Cima USA 16
Revaz Jinchvelashvili Georgia 15
Kevin Field HKG 10
Manuel Blengio Uruguay 9
Chris Arries Namibia 8
Adam McQueen Canada 8
Rikiya Matsuda Japan 5

Drop Goals:
Malan Kruger Namibia 1
Mosese Latu Tonga 1

Yellow Cards:
Giorgi Margveliani Georgia 2
Zhora Mgebrishvili Georgia 2
Jonathan Akauola Tonga 1
Andres Banchieri Uruguay 1
Niall Barry USA 1
Handre Bezuidenhout Namibia 1
Manuel Blengio Uruguay 1
Manuel Castro Uruguay 1
Jordan Cooper HKG 1
Michael Coverdale HKG 1
Sunita Fihaki Tonga 1
Shannon Frizzell Tonga 1
Davit Gulitashvili Georgia 1
Jarom Halo Tonga 1
Sawyer Herron Canada 1
Calvin Hunter HKG 1
German Kessler Uruguay 1
Roland Kvachadze Georgia 1
Kisina Neiufi Tonga 1
Ben Pinkelman USA 1

Red Cards:
Nathan Yanagiya Canada 1

*Japan's Rikiya Matsuda became all-time leading scorer in JWRT history in the 1st place match. His 90 career points surpasses USA's Madison Hughes (82) and Romania's Stefan Patrascu (82).

 

[Nieghorn]

Greetings! First post for me ... felt compelled to join and say that I'm glad I'm not the only one who's beating the "coach development" drum from a North American perspective. I'm a coach with 15 years experience, and three stints overseas, and I truly think we have a lot of room to grow in this field. While regional development officers would be great, I imagine there's no money for that (or it's all allocated to the senior men's teams), I think it'd be worth having occasional get-togethers where a few people can present their ideas / methods / tactics / etc. and anyone could come and pick up what they feel is relevant to their needs. I experienced something like that - though organised by the local pro side - when I was living in England. Every few weeks a different theme, didn't pay a cent ... or pence, rather.

I think Rugby Canada (and USA, by the sounds of it) should be observing what's happening somewhere like Argentina, as they're seemingly doing well without massive amounts of funding and (I gather) where the sport isn't one of their most popular.

 

[bakakumon]

Hong Kong team got percious opportunities to compete with national teams

Close game between Uruguay and USA, plus exchange of punches

Japan outweighed Tonga, numerous Japanese viewers were present in the stadium

 

[canadafan]

Have you other Canucks got your letters into Mark yet? http://bcrugbynews.com/show_news.cfm?ID=1276

 

[LittleGuy]

Have you other Canucks got your letters into Mark yet? http://bcrugbynews.com/show_news.cfm?ID=1276

Very dissapointed to see the Rugby Canada staff's comments post tournament. Shelley's remarks are particularly weird "this was a developmental tournament for us" aren't all U20 competitions by definition like this? I get that they are going to try and polish a turd but it's as if the debacle never happened, at least some acknowledgment that results weren't even close to expectation was a minimum requirement.

From those that caught more of the games than I did it seems like there weren't many Canadian players that performed particularly well even at an individual level and this didn't even serve a purpose of revealing a couple of hidden gems/standouts.

There was an interesting article about a week or so ago that Mark posted, about a sudden and substantial drop in playing numbers across Canada last year, losses were about 3-4% of our Junior/Senior players only slightly balanced by an uptake in mini's the drop was fairly uniform across the country so it's not as though there was a local issue.

It could be that we lost some real casual players in the lower level competitions due to the increase in dues/insurance payments etc. Or it could be a more worrying issue. I don't recall a year in the last decade or possibly further to as far as I started following the sport that numbers went down like that, most years have seen an increase and at worse a miniscule off year with a tiny loss.

 

[jonny24]

I know my fees went up substantially this year. That wouldn't effect the current number, but maybe lot of other clubs raised theirs last year. From what I hear my club has/had some of the lowest.

 

[Toko_11]

They asked GRU if there were plans to host the next years JWRT and they said there haven't been any hint or discussion from IRB, If there were plans we would've started preparing long time ago they say.

PS. I like how the discussion on Tier 2 has grown over last few years. I remember when it was just me, LittleGuy, Psychic, + dragos and Melhor. now there are many forums and far more people interested in it. Maybe people are getting bored of same repetitive tournaments and look towards tier 2 in hopes of finding new big guns.

I mean in 2007 no living soul would show any interest in a tourney like JWRT because tier 2 seemed like a lost cause.

 

[Nieghorn]

My other comment to Mark - in addition to what I said above - was that I wonder if we're missing an opportunity by not encouraging Colts leagues? (That would be U21, which they still run in New Zealand and Australia.) I used to coach in one in Ontario that seemed to be a good compromise for clubs who'd scream that they need some of those guys for men's team games; U21 games on Wednesday evenings in the summer. I know we had plenty more guys turn out for that than who would have played for our men's team. In fact, many said they felt they weren't ready for men's yet and enjoyed having an extra couple of years to develop.

Now this isn't a likely solution for our U20 national players, who probably should already be competing at men's levels and attracting interest from professional teams' academies. But there's a lot of development and growing to be done between 18-21 and talent identification research is seemingly leaning towards a "you can't say absolutely" that boys identified in their mid-teens will go on to be top level players. In addition to keeping young guys interested in the game, you might unearth a gem of a player or several for whom things just 'click' in the right environment or who spout a few inches and a few kgs in a short period.

 

[canadafan]

Colts is not a bad idea for the B.C. Winter League, still like the idea of U20s curtain raisers for the CRC though.