MAKING MOST OF MODEST CANADA
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KIERAN CROWLEY needs a miracle next Saturday when he will attempt to mould his teachers, his elevator repair men, various other civilian employees and a sprinkling of full-time rugby professionals into an organised unit who can cause Ireland discomfort in Cardiff.
The difference between the sport in the two countries is night and day. Rugby Canada is on its uppers, minding every cent after investing heavily in its sevens operation at the expense of 15-a-side. Contrast that to Ireland where the international game generated €60.5 million last season, 81 per cent of the IRFU’s E74.1m total income.
But at least in Crowley, the minnows are one up on Ireland. This is their coach’s fifth World Cup — two as a player, one as All Black selector and t wo as Canucks coach — compared to Joe Schmidt’s maiden appearance at the finals.
The pair of New Zealanders – Crowley’s a 54-year-old from Kaponga and Schmidt a 50-year-old from Woodville – grew up living just 200kms apart along North Island’s state highway 3, but it wasn’t been until recent years they became acquainted.
Their playing days were vastly different. Crowley was part of the All Black World Cup-winning squad in 1987 and played the last of 19 Tests in the 1991 semi-final defeat to Australia at Lansdowne Road, just as the backpacking Schmidt had rocked up as player- coach with Mullingar. ‘Joe went up the coaching tree a little before me. He was with the Blues in Auckland and then went to Clermont, but back in New Zealand you have a lot of coaching conferences. I’m used to catching up with him at those things,’ says Crowley. And there is a considerable distance between the different orbits the pair operate in with their adopted national sides. Crowley has had 53 games since taking over. He has endured 28 losses, including an early spanking to Declan Kidney’s Ireland in Limerick, while his squad head into these finals with just five wins in their last 20 and as the bottom side at the recent Pacific Nations Cup.
Schmidt’s record of 16 wins in 22 and back-to-back Six Nations titles gives you an idea of the gulf in quality surrounding this Millennium Stadium opener in four days’ time.
Crowley, though, has nothing but
matches have resulted in 28 defeats for former All Black and World Cup winner Kieran Crowley who took over as coach of Canada’s national team in March, 2008 when he replaced Ric Suggitt
the height of respect for his players. ‘If you ask New Zealand players to do some of the things the Canadian players have got to do they would tell you: “Get stuffed!”
‘They travel, do all that sort of stuff, and a lot of these Canadian boys, the ones who are at home, play for nothing. They are making huge investments, huge sacrifices in order to be part of this and all we can do is provide them with the best opportunity to perform.
‘This is the one stage they can really get out there and show what they can do. I look at some New Zealanders who have had contracts in tier-two leagues in places like England, we have got players just as good in Canada but they just don’t get the exposure.
‘We have got some players here who are having only four or five games of 15-a-side a year because they go right into sevens and that is the only way they can survive.
‘I would have taken a couple of more wins (in the run-in) and we lost two in the last play of the game. If we had got those two wins, I would be pretty damn happy where I was at,’ he adds about a recent run of six defeats in seven.
But he insists the sequence of results hasn’t damaged confidence that they can somehow gain two Pool D wins and automatically qualify for World Cup 2019.
‘We have not played too bad because we have changed our whole game and the way we wanted to play. That is coming together pretty good. We’re happy with where we are at but it’s going to be a much bigger challenge when we get to Cardiff,’ he adds.