Canada wins tight one against U.S.
Low-scoring game featured only one try
Canada’s men’s rugby team may have bent to the brink but didn’t break Saturday in the opening game of the International Rugby Board’s Pacific Nations Cup.
Thanks to a last-minute defensive stand in the shadow of its own uprights, the Canadians kicked off their summer schedule in style by scoring a tight 16-9 victory over the United States in front of more than 3,500 fans at the Ellerslie Rugby Park.
“They were down by seven and they knew they had to score and we just trust our defence,” said Canada captain Aaron Carpenter. “To keep a clean sheet as far as tries are concerned, we’re pretty happy about that.”
“Not letting them across the line is big for us,” said Connor Braid, who opened the scoring for Canada with a penalty goal (three points) in the fifth minute and added two more penalty goals in the second half.
“We pride ourselves on our defence and you saw, especially down in their end, our rush defence put them under a lot of pressure. The big boys were working really hard ... they were working their butts off, so kudos to them. That big rush defence, especially near our line, near their line, really put them under pressure.”
Still, U.S. head coach Mike Tolkin pointed out that the Americans “almost got one of our flankers through under the posts down at the end, down in the green zone” during the tense sequence of events in the dying moments.
“We were just applying more pressure, but we can’t wait so long to get into those situations,” said Tolkin. “I thought in the first half we were on our heels a bit. We didn’t apply enough pressure out of the gate.”
The 14th-ranked Canadians’ next game in the five-team Pacific Nations Cup is against Fiji, which is ranked No. 13, on June 5 in Ottawa.
“Hopefully, now we’ve got a line in the sand, so to speak, as far as our performance,” said Canada head coach Kieran Crowley.
Canada, which returned to Edmonton for the first time since a 2009 World Cup qualifying win over the U.S., led from start to finish on Saturday in a contest that also served as a precursor to August’s two-game World Cup qualifying series between the archrivals.
The Canadians controlled the territorial battle early against the U.S. on a cool, wet and windy afternoon.
“They struggled to get out of their own end a bit when we pinned them down there,” Braid said. “I think we just needed to play more of a simple game with the conditions.
“In games like this, it comes down to one or two opportunities and taking your points when they’re on the table.”
Canada did just that in the first half when it scored the game’s lone try as flanker John Moonlight took advantage of an errant pass from an American lineout deep in U.S. territory. Braid’s conversion made the score 10-0 just shy of the 20-minute mark.
A trio of penalty goals from American fullback Adam Siddall from late in the first half until the 13-minute mark of the second half was all the scoring the U.S. could muster.