After an amazing weekend of rugby in South Africa, the 2013 Rugby Sevens season closes down until January. The weekend was very emotional for the entire rugby world after the sad passing of Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa. Mandela promoted rugby in South Africa and he will be dearly missed.
The Canadian men did not have their best tournament of the year, finding themselves without a win going into day two. After losing to Wales by a single try, the Canadian boys went on to play Zimbabwe in the shield semi-finals. The boys played an excellent game and ended up winning and moving on to the shield final.
In their final match of the tournament, Canada met a strong Scotland side. The first half of the game did not go in their favour. Canada went into the second half down 19 – 0. With some words of encouragement from Canada’s sevens head coach Geraint John, Canada did their best to fight back. Phil Mack stepped up and scored two tries to get Canada within one. Sadly that was not enough for the Canadians and they lost by a converted try. The final score was 19 – 12.
For the Canadian team, winning a single game is not exactly where they should be! Their performance in South Africa dropped them from 11th place to 13th place in HSBC sevens series standings. Canada should definitely be a core 12 team and they should be pushing to be a top 10 team as well. In order to get back into the top 12 the Canadians must have a great tournament in Las Vegas this coming January.
Injuries have had a huge impact on the Canadian side. Canada started off the season without the speedster Sean Duke and, in Australia, they lost their captain Nathan Hirayama. In Dubai they lost two great players, Connor Braid and Lucas Hammond. Hopefully the Canadians can get these four players back into action before Las Vegas this January!
Canada has a great offense filled with lots of speed and quick feet, but something they must work on is their defense. Their defense was the reason that they where not successful in South Africa. For Canada to have good defense they need to be able to contain the opposition when they are attacking. Canada also made too many errors. They missed many tackles and dropped the ball on multiple occasions, which turned into turnovers and tries for the opposition!
Canada now has a 6-week break to regroup and get ready for Las Vegas. The Canadians are in a very tough pool with South Africa, Kenya and Wales. Hopefully, the boys step up to the occasion and have a lot more success in Las Vegas then they had in South Africa.
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