Chrome, Rangers, Tide & NSMT

Kleebs on the hunt!

………………..ALL go down the gurgler! As a pundit and punter, I really need to get my head in a different space, backing an odds on (look on), favourite; an underdog on the road; a team of personal choice and supposedly, (according to the visiting coach), a Home favourite!

V.I.R.U. teams had some good success in Vancouver Saturday when the Women won the Hellerud -Brown Trophy and the U20 men won the Dunbar Cup. The one that mattered equally was lost to the Home team by a score of 22 – 25. The Tide featured a couple of Tricolors – Dingwall, Kehoe, McPherson and Morris, with Ilnicki (Riley) on the bench. The Crimson Tide has won the Wooden Spoon…………where are those halcyon days gone?

To the main match. Not a lot to report, for most readers will have witnessed the contest.   Canada looked like they had iced it at the half with three good tallies and a 25 – 9 lead. From the get-go of the second stanza it was all Japan. Japan had cleverly guised themselves as “underdogs” by coach, Eddie Jones but having three Super XV players and a host of foreign born lads, this team was no chopped liver and as we watched a heavier Canadian scrum pushed “all over the ship” in the first half, perhaps it was a portent of things to follow.

Had there been a TMO, Japan’s first tally in the second half would no doubt, have been ruled a knock on before grounding occurred….great effort from Paris! Nevertheless, this was not the undoing…it was two horrendous defensive mistakes that allowed identical tries through a gap as wide as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, through for converted tries, (via a "rock-solid defender"), that did the real damage – a second half debacle and 25 unanswered points for the final loss, 25 – 34.

Spectators watched agape! We have seen this all before and what a pity! Was it injury, poor substitution, defensive misunderstandings, over confidence or what??? It is with interest, at time of writing that there is no game story line on Rugby Canada website. This was, perhaps with the exception of Sinclair, the very best fifteen players available at this point in time. It goes to show, that we are not really within the top echelon of the “second tier” of rugby nations.

There was really no one who stood out in this match. I give credit to Moonlight and Paris and efforts from Braid from the bench. Jones did his best but this one was definitely not Sevens! The kicking game was woeful. The back three were like men with no idea as to what they might do and the pack, despite outweighing their opponents, went backwards at the rate of knots. It is easy to criticize however, ideas about correction and improvement are just not present.

There were many other interesting International results over the weekend, Fiji securing its 11^th placing after a Home victory over Italy; Scotland possibly leap-frogging Samoa after their uninspiring tie with visiting #13 Tonga and perhaps The Maple Leaf was lucky that Georgia and Romania were off the pitch!

Scotland, next week’s opponents enjoyed a useful 27 – 6 over our southern challengers, so what will it be , with Hearn et al, carrying injuries and a team needing to revitalize its self-belief? CW wishes all involved the very best for the coming week and sometimes, when a team has its back to the wall, it performs its best – let’s hope so. Finally to the 6,300 fans who showed at Swanguard – ‘onyas, all; not the 20,000 of BMO but hopefully enough for another test at a larger venue some time soon.

Two postscripts; After viewing some utube replay, noted the umps did "go upstairs" on tally #1.....maybe just not the viewing and reviewing we get with Super Xv's! Looked like a knock on from my perspective.  Secondly, the superb pass from Moose and his support in springing Paris.  Great job, big man!