Just Deserves

CW offers its congratulations to newly announced Rugby Canada VII's Captain for the Dubai Sevens starting tomorrow, John Moonlight. Moonlight, who has been a consistent performer on the circuit in recent seasons, is joined by Nanyak Dala, Adam Kleeberger, Harry Jones, Ciaran Hearn, Connor Braid, Pat Parfrey, Phil Mack, Conor Trainor, Mike Scholz, Justin Douglas and Lucas Hammond ahead of back-to-back legs, ending in South Africa.
 
"He (Moonlight) leads from the front and always gives his all," coach John revealed after a day of practise matches against Scotland and New Zealand. "He's a very proud person and I know he has the respect of all the players and that they will follow him and do their best for both him and Canada."
 
Dubai won't be an easy proposition for Canada from studying the tournament schedule, with the team given just 1 hour 52 minutes recovery between their second and third game. That's the shortest turnaround for a side on Day 1, with other teams having 5 hours preparation time before their finale.
 
Needless to say recovery between matches will be of paramount importance more than ever for them as medical checks, re-hydrating, review, preview and taping of players before their USA clash will accelerate. That near-neighbor match is the penultimate game in a group that includes England and Fiji.
 
"The mood has been getting better all week and especially after today's training with Scotland and New Zealand," added John from Dubai. "Having those warm-ups and playing some Sevens games has certainly livened up the squad and I felt the performances improved this morning as the fixtures went on."
 
"The key thing has been to carefully monitor the players. We look closely at their hydration every morning, we record their weight and also we record their rate of perceived exertion after every training. This gives us an idea of what each player thinks of each training session and how hard it is."
 
"Again keeping them fresh is important so this afternoon and this evening the players have been given time off so that they can rest, relax and mentally prepare for action. Plus tomorrow we will have a slightly later start so that they can get some extra hours of sleep, which is important for recovery."

It is great to read of the professional care for our players.
 
Game One: Canada v England at 10:54 local (1:54am ET/10:54pm PT)
 
Canada open Day 1 against England, who continue under the tutelage of Simon Amor, with boss John saying their style hasn't changed since Ben Ryan's exit.
 
"They're still similar to last year - they still have the same key players with the rush defence," he said. "I thought they played very well in the Gold Coast and they will be very difficult to beat. We will have to make sure we stop their key players in Mat Turner and Daniel Norton who are both fast."
 
Game Two: Canada v Fiji at 15:46 local (6:46am ET/3:46am PT)
 
Second up on the opening day at 7he Sevens venue, which holds 50,000 spectators will be the aforementioned Ryan's Fijian side, who are always dangerous.
 
"Fiji have the ability to beat people. They have great steppers and have a great knowledge of the game. They want to keep the ball alive and offload so our defence will need to be excellent. Also they won the battle of the restarts against us so this is something we need to make sure we're ready for."
 
Game Three: Canada v USA at 18:02 local (9:02am ET/06:02am PT)
 
Day 1 concludes for Canada against the USA, who did not have the best of times on the Gold Coast of Australia. but still managed to lift the Plate title.
 
"USA are always difficult to beat," said a cautious John. "They are our closest rivals and we always seem to have tight games against them - only a few points in it. With Matt Hawkins (player/coach in Australia) now totally on the sideline and able to orchestrate his team from there I expect them to be very well organized and very fresh as they have not had any on tour unlike ourselves (Canada having been competing in several Fifteens matches of late)."