The Canadian men’s XVs rugby team is on a downward trajectory, at least if the raw numbers are any indication.
Dating back to the 2013 end of year tour, the team has compiled an ugly record of 2 wins and 9 losses.
Rugby Canada’s 7s Problem
Naturally, much head scratching and finger pointing has surfaced among Canadian rugby backers as they grope for an explanation.
One theory from this corner is that the men’s XVs program is undermined by its close ties to the 7s squad.
To be fair, this theory requires a fair dollop of narrativizing; that being said, every downturn in a sports team’s fortunes deserves an equal dose of wild speculation. So let’s begin with the potential negatives of Canada’s XVs and 7s co-mingling.
The most glaring downside is that, after a long season of training and strategizing on the 7s World Series, dual-code players tend to struggle when reintegrating themselves in the XVs game; look no further than Canada’s current Pacific Nations Cup campaign, where 7s regulars like Ciaran Hearn and Liam Underwood have showed their class but also had their share of miscues.
Hearn, as he often does, has provided an excellent restart kick and strong ball-running ability. However, his centres partnership with Connor Braid continues to sputter, and the Canadian midfield defense has often looked out of sync since he settled in as head coach Kieran Crowley’s preferred option in the thirteen jersey about two years ago. At this point it’s reasonable to consider that the difference in tactics between XVs and 7s might not agree with the talented Newfoundlander.
Underwood, meanwhile, has bags of skill at his disposal: pace, incisive running, an accurate tactical boot, and defensive ability which belies his smallish build. However, he sometimes appears marginally slow in his decision-making in XVs. Underwood’s much-discussed try assist to Aaron Carpenter—which looked like either a forward pass, a dropped ball, or some combination of the two—suggest a player who needs work on freezing defenders in tight quarters, hardly surprising if one assumes that he is mentally conditioned to having more space in which to roam.
Again, it’s a stretch to say that the issues mentioned above can be blamed completely on repeated transition between XVs and 7s. Yet they are enough to back up the theory at hand: cross-code participation may be doing the players and the teams more harm than good.
Which brings us to one clear positive: logically, it should be to Canada’s advantage to field the 23 most talented rugby players in the country for any given test match, no matter which version of the game they prefer. Quality off the bench is crucial to success in modern test rugby, after all. Additionally, the 7s players also benefit from any chance to play at a high-level.
Unfortunately, that exposes another problem, and this one is a whopper—the lack of a domestic professional XVs league. With its limited financial resources, the two-month Canadian Rugby Championship does not offer homegrown players a chance to earn a living in rugby. Instead, Canadians are forced to move overseas, where their development is of no concern to the respective national programs.
If there was more opportunity for XVs rugby players in Canada, it stands to reason that more people would choose to stay with rugby as a career. An increase in the pool of players would mean less incentive for the XVs program to “poach” from 7s, and those players could be left in a setup which is already nationally funded—thanks to national Olympic aspirations—and which is already a year-round commitment. Perhaps, in the long run, it would even be best to mandate a separation of the XVs and 7s programs sooner rather than later, although this would entail significant short-term struggles on the pitch. Certainly there is something to be said the respective teams building up their own depth and “standing on their own two feet,” as it were.
There may be a chance that Rugby Canada can get involved in the hoped-for USA professional league which is rumored to be nearing a launch. The catch is that this proposed competition is being developed by Rugby International Marketing (RIM), an organization which exists not only to develop the profile of rugby in the ‘States, but also to turn a profit. RIM has financial backers at the Rugby Football Union in England who also expect a return on their investment within a few years.
Clearly, this means that if Canada is to get a foot in the door on such a venture, it hinges on guaranteeing the generation of cold, hard cash from north of the border.
Sure, there are a lot of practical obstacles in the way of such a scenario. But while desperate times may not call for desperate measures, they at least call for some serious daydreaming—the better to avoid an ugly 2-9 reality.
