Canada to ‘scrum as hard as they can’

Canada head to the World Cup with the stated goal of winning every game but concede that is not going to happen playing in a pool with three-time champions New Zealand, twice champions South Africa, Italy and Namibia.

Having qualified for every World Cup, Canada achieved their best result in 1991 advancing to the quarterfinals but are unlikely to come close to matching or bettering that performance in Japan 2019 where they will be hard-pressed to simply get out of the group.

“Obviously you want to win every game but that’s not going to be the case, so we just want to prepare ourselves as well as possible and get on the field and put on a strong performance,” Canadian wing Daniel Tailliferre Hauman van der Merwe told Reuters.

“We had some really good battles at past World Cups with teams like France, Italy and sometimes you catch them on an off-day.

“Hopefully we’ll get one of those days at this World Cup and we play our perfect game because that’s what we will need to do to win these games.”

Only 23rd-ranked Namibia would seem to be a contest the 22nd-ranked Canadians can realistically target as a possible win.

One of the few members of the Canadian squad playing top-flight rugby in Europe with the Glasgow Warriors in the Pro14, the 33-year-old South African-born wing has been a reliable point producer throughout his career, which includes more than 50 caps for Canada.

We [Canada] had some really good battles at past World Cup