A good result for Cane but not King Country
All Blacks captain Sam Cane has made a successful, if understated, return to rugby in the Heartland Championship on Saturday.
In a one-off appearance for King Country, in their round-four clash against Whanganui at Owen Delany Park in Taupō, Cane was largely quiet in the Rams’ 48-13 defeat, but most importantly got through unscathed in his first game since pec and shoulder surgery in April.
Having declared he had been prescribed 40 minutes by the All Blacks coaches, Cane in the end played 57 minutes, in what was his only chance for game-time ahead of boarding a flight on Thursday to link up with the national squad in the United States.
‘‘Pretty good,’’ was how the national skipper told Sky TV his body felt following the hitout.
‘‘[It’s] just awesome to be back playing footy. It’s been a long wait. And thanks King Country and Whanganui for having me out here today, it was awesome to be involved, and cool to see so many people out and about too.
‘‘[I] stayed 25-30 minutes down the road at Mum and Dad’s last night, and Dad drove me in. I’ve played on this ground a fair few times as a kid growing up, so it’s cool to be back.’’
With his Bay of Plenty side having a bye in the NPC, the 29-year-old had made the unique
one-week transfer to King Country – the province neighbouring his hometown of Reporoa – in order to bank some valuable matchplay, as he targets the test match against USA in Washington in a fortnight.
Starting at openside flanker, the 74-test veteran by no means stood out in his step down the grades, but did his bread and butter with no sign of any discomfort, having been contact training for the past few weeks.
Amongst a team he only linked up with at training in Mangakino on Thursday night, and which then lost several more players due to the extended Covid-19 lockdown boundary, there were a couple of defensive mishaps for the hosts which had Cane passed by surging Whanganui forwards.
There was, however, some wellexecuted defensive work from the abrasive loose forward, tackling well and cleaning strongly, with his highlight a ruck turnover penalty win in the 33rd minute.
And after making a surprise reappearance for the second stanza, Cane then got more involved with ball in hand, if not for many metres, but several times showing nice offloading skills to keep attacks alive.
His vision and wide pass inside his 22m also led to a try soon after, with second five-eighth Sio Tapili sent on a surge, then lock Bradly Jeffries dotting down.
However, that would prove to be the Rams’ only try of the day, and after leading just 15-6 at halftime, Whanganui went on to bag five second-half five-pointers.
Uruguay qualified for the 2023 Rugby World Cup after beating the United States 34-15 yesterday while Canada will miss the tournament for the first time after an historic loss to Chile.
Uruguay overturned a 19-16 loss to the US in Colorado last weekend to win comfortably in Montevideo and advance on aggregate 50-34.
The Teros will appear in their fifth World Cup, joining tournament host France, New Zealand, Italy and an African side to be determined in Pool A.
The US will face Chile next year for the right to go to the World Cup as the Americas 2 qualifier in Pool D.
Chile beat Canada for the first time, 33-24, in Valparaiso, after blowing a win a week ago in Langford. There, Chile conceded a penalty with 30 seconds to go and Canada escaped as 22-21 winners.
Santiago Videla scored a try and kicked 18 points yesterday for Chile to progress 54-46 on aggregate, with an eye on their first World Cup appearance.
Uruguay started well against the US thanks to a Rodrigo Silva try set up by first five-eighth Felipe Etcheverry and centre Nicolas Freitas.
The Eagles went ahead with a Mika Kruse try but goalkicking wing Federico Favaro had Uruguay up 13-8 at halftime.
The tension through the first half disappeared in the second in a 12-minute span when Uruguay scored three converted tries by wing Gaston Mieres, hooker Facundo Gattas and another Freitas set-up for Silva to complete Uruguay’s first World Cup qualifying win over the US in 19 years.
Chile had a 13-point lead by halftime after a superb try from first five-eighth Rodrigo Fernandez, who caught Ross Braude’s box kick and motored through the defense.
After halftime, Chile hooker Augusto Bhome was sin-binned and opposite Eric Howard scored to close the gap to six, but 14-man Chile also scored a try to prop Matias Dittus from a tap and go.
Videla continued to punish Canada indiscipline, and though the visitors were nine behind with 13 minutes to go, another mistake at a restart gave Chile an easy foothold in the 22 and led to Videla’s own converted try for 33-17.
While another Chile player was sinbinned for the last six minutes, Canada could cross only once.
‘‘Fair play to South American rugby. They’ve really invested and they’re going in the right direction,’’ Canada coach Kingsley Jones said.
‘‘The competition for World Cup spots has become very very competitive and we’ve missed out.’’