Considered a dress rehersal for the first ever Rugby Sevens competition in next summer’s Rio Olympics, the first ever Rugby sevens competition at the Pan-Am Games has to be considered a big success. Featuring sell-out crowds at Exhibition Stadium, it was the biggest ever crowd to watch Rugby Sevens in Canada. Add to that the dominance of the Canadian entries, and a pair of gold medals, and the brass at Rugby Canada must be ecstatic this morning.
Rugby Canada Dominates at Pan-Am Games, Double Golden Weekend
The women were particularly dominant. Six games, six wins, four shutouts, and a 55-7 victory over the United States in the gold medal game. The Canadian women defeated the Americans twice in the tournament, but those Americans were the only team to penetrate the seemingly impenetrable Canadian defence. Even after giving up a try early, and trailing for the first time all tournament, the women would turn things around, dominate the game, and leave no doubt that they were the best rugby team in the tournament.
Ranked number two in the world, behind only New Zealand’s Black Ferns, Canada’s Women’s sevens team came into this tournament as heavy favorites and delivered by outscoring opponents 285-16 over their six wins. Now they are looking ahead to Rio, and coach John Tait and captain Jen Kish definitely have next summer’s tournament square in their sites.
“It’s incredible and this is our first Pan Am Games, so to walk away with a gold medal is a phenomenal feeling,” said Kish. “There’s definitely more great days for this team. Every time we put on the Canadian jersey we want to give the best performance that we can. We’re always cup-hunting. We always want to be the best that we can be so you can expect many more trophies from us building towards Rio.”
Tait focused on these games as a culmination of going three for three in their 2015 goals.
“This is probably the best performance of our year,” head coach John Tait said, after the final. “We were clinical after that first try with the US, settled down took a deep breath, Kish, I know, pulled them in and told them to relax and they really started to fire from there. For 18, 19 minutes that probably the best rugby we played all year.”
“We had three goals this year,” Tait said. “Qualify for Rio, win a world series event, and the last goal we had this season was to come here and win a gold medal.”
Things were a little bit closer, and a little more tense on the Men’s side, but the end result was the same, a Canadian gold. The Men’s team defeated Argentina 22-19 in the gold medal match.
The gold-medal thriller was the culmination of a series of exciting wins for the Canadian men. The Canadians weren’t favored in the tournament but took out Chile 17-12 in the quarter-finals, and defeated the top ranked Americans 26-19 in the semi-finals before defeating Argentina in the finals.
“We didn’t make any of the games easy,” said Canadian captain John Moonlight. “We’ve always said to ourselves there’s no opportunity where we can’t win a game very with little time left we can always come back.”
