Fans will soon adjust their frequency
Host team hopes to feed off charged B.C. crowd in opening game of Canada Sevens
Canada’s opening game in this weekend’s HSBC Canada Sevens at B.C. Place Stadium may be its most important.
To make Day 2’s cup quarterfinals, with a chance to play for all the marbles at the end of it all, the Canadians need to seal at least two pool wins on Day 1. This weekend they’re in Pool D with Scotland, Russia and New Zealand.
Of course, they did just that last year but still finished third in their group after Wales and Australia ended the day 2-1, just like the Canadians. Points differential was the lesson there, putting them into the bottom half of the Sunday playoff draw.
The easiest route Saturday will be to win all three games, giving them first seed in their pool and a match with the second-place team in Pool A, but first thing first: beat Scotland to open their account. (Kickoff is 11:42 a.m.)
“Ready to put on a show,” Canada captain Harry Jones said this week as his side prepared to host the second edition of the tournament.
“You want to chase something. We’re chasing a top eight (spot) and on Day 2 seeing where we can go from there,” he said. “That first game against Scotland is going to be the big one.”
Last year, the Canadians won the ninth-place “bowl” title, winning all their games on Day 2 before claiming the bowl final against France on the game’s last play after the French were unable to clear the ball to end the match.
John Moonlight crashed over for the try and the crowd went wild; they went wilder still when Nathan Hirayama hammered home the conversion to seal the win.
“Last year we finished in amazing fashion,” Jones said. “You can’t ask for anything better. I don’t think many fans quite knew what we were playing for, but they knew we were playing for something and that was enough.”
Scotland coach Callum McRae took note last year how energized the Canadian crowd can be. At the Sydney Sevens in January, his team was in a similar spot, playing host team Australia in pool play.
The key, he said, was to focus playing smooth, mistake-free rugby in the early stages, to avoid giving the home crowd things to roar about.
“Ultimately there’s a charged crowd there, you don’t want to give them anything to cheer for too early,” McRae said. “If you try and take it on too aggressively, then you’ve allowed for the stadium to play its part.
“We’re very much looking forward to it,” McRae added. “All we’re focused on is performance and getting the win.”
Canada will then face Russia (mid-afternoon), a hard-edged team that has mostly struggled this season, before closing the day against New Zealand in the day’s final match.
The All Blacks remain fearsome, but the Canadians beat them in each of the past two seasons and drew with them in the season’s second tournament in Cape Town, South Africa.
The Canadians are aiming big on Saturday — and even bigger Sunday.
The World Rugby Sevens Series schedules its 10 tournaments over back-to-back weekends. The second tournament is always as much about which teams are the healthiest as it is about consistent performance.
After finishing fourth at the Wellington Sevens three tournaments ago, the Canadians finished 13th a week later in Sydney. There was some bad luck involved — a missed kick in the final pool match against Argentina meant they just missed out on the cup quarters for the second straight week — but they also were carrying a handful of veterans struggling with injury. Day 2 didn’t go so well as a result.
A deeper team, like series leaders South Africa, might have been able to weather the storm, but the Canadians are bringing along a number of young players. One day they’ll have the experience to deal with heavy playing minutes, but not quite yet.
“Mentally, sevens tournament are a roller-coaster,” Jones said. “Going from Wellington to Sydney, not only were we banged up but we went from a high of finishing fourth — we hadn’t done that, or even a top eight in a long time — and then going to Sydney, four or five key guys banged up, not much depth compared to what we have now. It’s hard to go deep in tournaments without that.”
Coming off a grinding Las Vegas Sevens a week ago, the Canadians are relatively unscathed. Some teams lost players to heavy scrapes suffered on the hard, dry turf at UNLV’s Sam Boyd Stadium. Despite efforts to keep the field slick with moisture, strong winds kept blowing the sprayed-on water off the field.
The Canadians’ main goal in Vegas was to secure a favourable draw. Their pool is tough — most are these days — but they’re facing some tired, banged up squads.
The Scots are dealing with a host of injuries, suffered over the last three tournaments.
The Kiwis were fourth in Las Vegas, losing bruising matches in the quarters to Fiji and in the thirdplace match to the Americans.
The Russians pulled off a big performance in Sydney but scored just five tries last weekend and were winless.
Every team but Canada had to deal with it: the snowy conditions meant many teams scrambled to find indoor facilities to run through their paces.
While Canada had exclusive access to B.C. Place, teams like New Zealand found the St. George’s School gym to train in when the weather outside made it too difficult to use the school’s fine rugby fields. Other teams, like Samoa, got time in at the covered pitch in North Vancouver at Windsor Secondary.
All-weather turf pitches at UBC and in Vancouver at Trillium Park and Empire Fields got use once the clouds cleared, too.
Teams from warmer parts of the world might have felt the stress of the winter conditions, but the Scots weren’t much fussed.
“Everyone’s having a laugh that the conditions are suiting us,” McRae joked. “Sydney was a challenge at 38 degrees, coming from the winter.”
You want to chase something. We’re chasing a top eight (spot) and on Day 2 seeing where we can go from there. HARRY JONES, captain of Canadian Rugby Sevens team