Much like soccer, rugby is a sport beloved by most of the world but widely under appreciated in North America, which is bizarre considering the fascination the U.S. and Canada has with both brands of North American-style football (NFL/NCAA and CFL). For instance, the Grey Cup awarded to the best team in the CFL was the trophy awarded to teams registered with the Canada Rugby Union, decades before the foundation of the CFL as we know it today.
The similarities are still visible. The line of scrimmage in football is reminiscent to the scrums in rugby, and the quarterback spreading the ball around to the different positions on the football offence is very similar to the role of the scrum half in rugby, who tries to get the ball out to the speedy players in the back row. Both sports feature the same punishing tackles, but with rugby players wearing next-to-no pads, the amount of dangerous hits where players launch themselves into the ball carrier, as regularly seen in football, is greatly reduced. Also, unlike the CFL and NFL, play is rarely if ever interrupted by commercial breaks.
Currently, the top rugby players in Canada are competing at the World Cup of Rugby in New Zealand, the premiere rugby tournament featuring the top-20 rugby-playing nations. With an International Rugby Board ranking of No. 14, Canada are the underdogs in a World Cup pool that features the top-ranked All Blacks team from New Zealand and the No. 5 ranked France.
In July, TSN was awarded the Canadian broadcasting rights to this year’s Rugby World Cup and the 2015 World Cup in England. According to Mike Miller, the managing director of Rugby World Cup Limited, the announcement “represents a significant boost for the reach and profile of rugby in Canada.”
Since the announcement, TSN has done a great job promoting their coverage of Canada’s World Cup run, which offers viewers from coast to coast who have little to no exposure to rugby the opportunity to check out what Rugby Canada is all about.
And for those who stayed up late on Sept. 13 to watch Canada’s first match live — or caught the game when it was re-broadcast at a more reasonable hour the next day — they were rewarded by an extremely entertaining battle against No. 12 ranked Tonga.
Canada used the strong wind at their backs to their advantage and took a 10-7 lead into halftime. In the second half, Tonga came out strong and took a 20-13 lead with just over 15 minutes to go in the game. Holding strong on defence, Canada managed to get the ball back and score a quick try, missing the potentially game-tying convert. Down only two points with 10 minutes to go, Canada protected the ball and methodically marched right down the field to score the go-ahead points with under six minutes remaining in the game.
In the dying minutes, some sloppy play gave Tonga the chance to steal victory from the Canadians. Tonga had some fantastic opportunities, but they were squandered as the Canadians stood strong on defence and kept Tonga out of the end zone. As the final whistle blew, Canada’s hard fought 25-20 comeback was complete, leaving the Tonga supporters in the stands silent as the Canadian players celebrated on the pitch.
In their next game against France, played in miserable rainy weather conditions, Canada kept the score close for most of the match; but as the game came to a close it became clear why France was so heavily favoured to win. Despite the 46-19 final score, the game was actually fairly close, until the last 16 minutes in which France scored three converted tries to put the victory out of reach for the Canadians. Canada also missed three of five penalty kicks, compared to France going five out of six, and only managed one try to France’s four, illustrating the disparity between the top-five nations and the rest of the field.
With the loss, Canada remains at a steep disadvantage to move on from the pool stage. With the top two teams in each pool moving on, Canada will need to get past Japan and then upset the top-ranked New Zealand, a daunting task for a team made up of mostly amateur athletes. Finishing third in the pool would be the most realistic goal for the team, automatically qualifying the team for the next World Cup in 2015.
For those interested in checking out the remaining Team Canada games in their pool, the match against Japan airs live at 11:30 p.m. on TSN Sept. 26 (rebroadcasted Sept. 27 at 7 p.m. on TSN2) and the match against New Zealand airs live at 10 p.m. on TSN Oct. 1 (rebroadcasted Oct. 2 at 9:30 p.m. on TSN2).
