Tis the season to be frozen apparently if you’re in Ontario. Meanwhile here in New Zealand I’m basking in sunshine and kicking it in my shorts and shirt. Not a conversation opener I probably should have used with Niagara Falls native Ray Barkwill, who kindly had a chat with me a couple of days back about rugby, Canada, and his love of the game. Given the ice storms that have thumped the region recently, I think Ray was quite happy to be inside, warm and on Skype rather than hanging out in the miserable weather though.
Ray has had a huge career with rugby to date, representing the Niagara Wasps, Ontario Blues, the Canadian National side and seeing action down in the southern hemisphere playing in Western Australia at club level, and training in the Western Force Super Rugby franchise, playing in their A squad development side.
Naturally it intrigued me to find out where this passion for the sport had come from. “My earliest involvement, I had a Kiwi grade eight teacher who introduced us to rugby, it was real briefly in elementary school, so I kind of knew the sport. Then when I went to high school, the high school was really big in rugby. There was a lot of expat people there, so we had a junior team, a really big senior team and even a girl’s team. The culture was really centred around athletics, all the athletes played football, hockey, basketball and then rugby in the spring. When I went there I played football and soccer at that point, my friends kept asking me to go and play rugby, it wasn’t until grade 10 I thought I might give it a try. One of my buddies was really bugging me to try it so I thought I’d give it a crack and I really loved it. I kind of hung in there and liked it.”
A move from Canada to Western Australia saw Ray take his next huge steps in the game. Moving from the Ontario Blues, to Western Australia on the face of it seems a big call, I asked Ray the reasons behind his decision. “When I was playing for Ontario I was just behind at the time a current and ex international player, and I wasn’t getting a lot of game time to showcase myself. I’d get five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. I figured I had the skill level and ability to play at that level but I was only coming on as a reserve, so I wasn’t getting the time to show what I could do. I was looking to do some postgraduate work abroad so I looked at schools in New Zealand and Australia, I applied to about four schools. I knew I didn’t want to go to the UK. I wanted to do either two countries, either New Zealand or Australia. If you want to be a great hockey player you come to Canada. If you want to be a better rugby player you go and play, I think, in the southern hemisphere. The three best rugby countries in the world at the moment I think are South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. There the top three nations, so you go play there. I had an Aussie buddy who came over to Brock University, we got along and played rugby. Brock is the sister school to Curtin University in Western Australia, so I applied to Curtin, I applied to Bond University and Griffith University, and to Canterbury University in Christchurch. [My friend] talked to some people at the club [at Curtin] and they came up with a package to assist in getting me over there…coming from Canada I hadn’t really played rep rugby or anything, so someone took a chance on me. I’d heard good things about Perth, and I didn’t really want to go somewhere full of expat Canadians, so everything just kind of worked out in a weird way. It was one of the best opportunities I’ve ever had, and some of the most fun I’ve ever had.”
“In some ways I wish I was still there, but I had to take the opportunity to come back and play for Canada when it happened. If it wasn’t for that I’d probably still be there.”
Broadening on his rugby playing memories of Western Australia, Ray discussed playing at both University and Super Rugby levels, saying. “I was playing for the University of Western Australia in their premier league. Over there it goes premier league, then pretty much into Super Rugby, so it’s kind of a feeder league. I made the state side every year I was playing. Right up to 2011, the Rugby World Cup year, our club went from pretty much bottom of the table, to second in the table, and then went on to win the Grand Final. I had a really good year, I didn’t miss a single game all year, it was great.”
“The [Western] Force called me and said ‘Hey, why don’t you come and train with our extended team, train three, four times a week and see if you could maybe start at fourth hooker, maybe work your way in’. To practice and train with those goes, whoa that was an experience. I mean you’re out there with [Wallabies player Blair] Pocock, Richard Brown, classy guys, Sharpie [Nathan Sharpe], to be around that I just tried to take in as much as I could. I got a good opportunity to play, I played on the Force A Squad, not quite the Super Rugby elite guys but still great games. Really fast paced rugby against the [Melbourne] Rebels development squad and [Queensland] Reds development squads. You’re playing guys that, half these guys are on full contracts now.”
Having a chance to compare Northern and Southern Hemisphere rugby with someone who is intimately acquainted with both is something of a dream scenario. Many Kiwi and Australian rugby fans believe there is a marked difference between the two game styles, Ray tends to agree. “The Northern Hemisphere is starting to understand that this is the direction rugby needs to go in if we want to be competitive. England is starting to do it, France does it. You’re seeing England and France play that fast, high risk-high reward rugby, they’re keeping the ball in play. The Southern Hemisphere is much more advance, the Northern Hemisphere is still good but you see the guys in the Southern Hemisphere in practice doing so much more.”
Looking at how Northern Hemisphere, and particularly Canadian, rugby support has improved, we touched on the recent rounds of test matches at BMO field, selling out game against the Maori All Blacks and getting great support for the game against USA. “We’ve played three times at BMO, two sellouts. We have a great support staff in Rugby Canada, if you’re hiring more people to promote the game, the grass roots stuff is growing, and the fact rugby is on TSN, our National sports channel, we can be playing in England and people back home can still watch the game. Social media is huge as well, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, it doesn’t matter where you go now…I’m not even a prime face [and I get recognised]. I can only imagine what a Jamie Cudmore, or the more recognised guys must get in the public. I’d give a lot of credit though to the people that Rugby Canada has hired to promote the game. They’re doing a great job, and it can only get better.”
Looking at the future, and the possibility of Canada developing a professional level, I asked Ray if he saw a chance for Canada to expand onto the professional stage. “I wouldn’t say it’s a Canada thing so much as a North America thing if we want to go professional. With the amount of people who could be tuning in, there’s a lot of money to be made and a lot of athletes who could play. When people figure out there’s money to be made here, the States will invest in the game, they’ll look at it as a business opportunity. They’re not going to look at it as a growing the game opportunity, it’ll be a business decision. The Olympics is going to change things, with the Sevens. I don’t think it’s going to be an immediate thing, but I do think that we’ll see for example a professional domestic Sevens series where they play tournaments throughout North America.”
“People are starting to understand that this business model is the way it’s going to go. I think about 2020 we’ll start to see the conversations starting.”
Canada qualified early for the Rugby World Cup 2015, I asked Ray about Cup preparation, and how much of the prep occupies front of mind for the team “We talk about it. When the two year mark happened in September, we know the dates, we’re prepping for it, long term looking at who’s going to be available, who are we going to look at to develop. They have an idea of who in the grand scheme is likely to be ready.”
“We know that, whether it’s our game plan, or our strength and conditioning, we know that we need to be prepared and we need to be ready for 2015. We lost a couple of games in our European tour, but there’s no panic. You don’t ever want to lose games, but they still give you a chance to learn, and see what works. We’ve totally changed our philosophy on how we play, we lost two tough games but we learned a lot about how we play.”
One of the potential advantages Canada has is their ability to utilise players in both the sevens and fifteen games. Players like Sean Duke, Nate Hirayama, Adam Kleeberger and Phil Mack all have seen activity in both facets of the game. “We do use a lot of our Sevens games in the fifteens. We can use that sevens tool to really help develop our fifteens team. Guys like Nate, Sean, they’re all pushing for a Rugby World Cup spot.”
“We do have a great culture here though, rugby is still comparatively small, so the guys are close. But they’re all competing for those spots as well.”
I did try to probe a bit more in depth about the team atmosphere, mentioning there’s always one stinky kid on the bus during tours, and was Ray at liberty to divulge said stinky kid. “I can’t roll on this man, I have a front row code, and I can’t throw a buddy under the bus. If I wasn’t Front row I could but I can’t throw one of my props under the bus. Especially the guy from the prairies.” So I’ll respect Ray’s privacy on this front. Although if anyone cracks the code, we have to say that “The Duker put him up to it.”
Looking at the holiday period, Ray has a full schedule ahead. “I work a job still, I’m a teacher so I have two weeks off. I’m watching a lot of hockey, and I’ll be spending time with my family. I’m also in training as well, although when it’s minus ten out you don’t really want to do much.”
Rugby Canada is developing hugely, and to have a chance to speak to guys like Ray is a huge honour. I’d like to thank Ray for taking time out on a Sunday night to chat to me. Ray is highly active on social media, keep up to date with his activities on his Twitter feed, and check out the Rugby Canada Twitter Feed and Website for details on their upcoming fixtures.
I’ll close out by wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, I look forward to seeing you all in the New Year.
Main Photo Credit: Rugby Canada Communications via YouTube
Secondary Photo Credits: Via Twitter
