Winless Canada handed another heartbreaking loss
BURNABY — Canada would do just about anything for a victory in men’s rugby at the moment.
AJ MacGinty scored a drop goal in the 80th minute Monday as the United States downed Canada 15-13 in the fifth-place game at the Pacific Nations Cup.
The Canadians finished the six-team tournament with four losses, including back-to-back gut-wrenching results after Wednesday’s 21-20 defeat to Samoa that also saw the winning points come in the dying seconds.
“Another disappointing loss for us. We gave a full performance,” said Canadian captain Aaron Carpenter. “We stopped playing a bit there. We let them come at us and played scared a little bit because we’ve lost a couple tight games in the last couple outings.”
MacGinty added a 4-for-4 performance on penalties for the Americans (2-2-0), who are ranked 16th in world.
Canadian substitute Nick Blevins scored the game’s only try in the 71st minute on a lungbusting run down the right- hand side that gave No. 18 Canada a 13-12 lead after Liam Underwood’s conversion before MacGinty snatched the victory for his team.
Canadian head coach Kieran Crowley has been attempting to implement new systems ahead of the Rugby World Cup in England, which begins Sept. 18, and despite the losses, he’s encouraged by his team’s play over the last three weeks.
“We’ve built on everything as we’ve gone forward, but in the end we would have liked to get at least one result go our way,” said Crowley. “A couple (close) losses. You’ve got to win those games and we didn’t.
“There has been progress made, but it needs to get another step up.”
Canada is just 2-11 over its last 13 test matches dating back to November 2013, with the only victories coming over No. 21 Namibia and No. 29 Portugal. The losses include No. 9 Samoa (twice), No. 11 Scotland, No. 12 Tonga, No. 13 Japan (twice), No. 14 Georgia, the U.S. (twice) and No. 17 Romania (twice). The record worsens when counting non-test losses to the New Zealand Maori and an English second-division all-star team.
Canada dropped a sloppy 20-6 loss to Japan July 18 to open the PNC, but played well for stretches of a 28-18 defeat to Tonga six days later before consecutive heartbreakers to Samoa and the U.S.
“They’ve played all these teams tough and haven’t got results,” said former national team member and current Canadian program manager Gareth Rees. “I don’t have to state the obvious. We’ll do anything to get a result right now.”
Samoa met Fiji later Monday in the PNC final, where Fiji emerged victorious, 39-29. Tonga beat Japan 31-20 in the tournament’s third-place game.
Canada now gets a bit of a break before its next World Cup warm-up against the Americans on Aug. 22 in Ottawa. The Canadians will then meet Scottish club Glasgow Warriors in Halifax on Aug. 29.
“All of the teams are within a hair of each other,” said Carpenter. “We almost beat Samoa the other day and the U.S. today ... test matches revolve around small, little things.”