A Look Behind Rugby Canada’s Fall From Grace

Rugby in Canada has a rich history, with the national team having qualified for every world cup in history, notably reaching the quarter-finals in 1991. The next two decades proved positive, with Canada recording at least one win in each world cup up to and including 2011. However, after peaking at an international ranking of 11th in 2011, Canada failed to win even a single game at the 2015 World Cup, and sunk to a record low ranking of 24th in 2017. Canada now sits rather uncomfortably as the 21st ranked team in the world.

Canada is competing at the upcoming 2019 Rugby World Cup that kicks off in September after sneaking in through the last round of qualification. However, it is hard to be optimistic about the team’s chances. A quick look at the side’s recent run of form over the past 18 months is anything but encouraging, with a test record of 6 wins out of 19, including loses to Brazil (10-18), Fiji (13-38), USA (19-47, 17-42, 10-29), Uruguay (29-38), Russia (20-43), and Argentina’s second team (15-40, 23-39).

So where do the problems lie? Since the last world cup in 2015, Canada has cycled through three different coaches, including Kieran Crowley, Mark Anscombe (who only lasted 18 months after winning just 13% of matches), and now Kingsley Jones. Notably, however, Kieran Crowley went on to win coach of the year in one of rugby’s top leagues (Pro14) after his dismissal as Canada’s coach – evidence that poor coaching is not necessarily to blame. And what about the players? Despite having just the 5th smallest player pool of any 2019 World Cup team, Canada still boasts talents such as Tyler Ardron (a top player on one of the best teams in arguably the best rugby league in the world – Super Rugby), DTH Van der Merwe (record try scorer for Scottish giants Glasgow Warriors), and Taylor Paris (who plays for Castres Olympique in the French Top 14 league), to name a few. The issues stem from much deeper issues in the fundamental structure of Rugby Canada.

Of the 26,000 national team -eligible rugby players in Canada, 50% are under the age of 21. While this may seem promising, it is in fact the opposite. This youth to senior ratio has been stagnant for decades, demonstrating that rugby players are becoming disillusioned with the sport during their youth and simply stop playing. This has a lot to do with Rugby Canada’s difficulty in transitioning high-potential youth players into senior team members (with contracted players having to move all the way to Langford, British Columbia, on top of a poorly developed talent identification and recruitment system). This inability to properly develop talent has led to an over-reliance on the aforementioned superstars (of the 7 tries Canada scored at the 2015 World Cup, Van der Merwe scored 4 of them), which is neither sustainable nor auspicious. This is a saddening positive feedback loop – as Canada continues to struggle internationally, less and less players have motivation to keep playing at a competitive level. Athletes simply don’t see the incentive to carry on playing rugby.

Then there is the issue of exposure and growing the game at a national level. Playing rugby in Canada is both expensive and largely inaccessible. Fees for grassroots club teams (the backbone of any successful national set-up) rose even higher in 2018, as a way to generate more money for the grossly underfunded national team. Rugby Canada is notoriously bad at promoting and showcasing its international test matches, which should be the marquee events to push to Canadian viewers – as a way to both strengthen the existing rugby community and attract newcomers. Case in point: this Saturday’s (August 24th) Rugby Canada match against legendary Irish club team Leinster, which should be promoted as much as possible to build momentum towards the world cup, is not being broadcasted on any channel. In fact, it is not even being live-streamed on Rugby Canada’s Facebook page. This lack of broadcast coverage is largely due to cable sports network TSN’s (who bizarrely hold exclusive rights to show Rugby Canada matches) inability to show Canada matches live, or even at all, across just one of their five channels. Further, home national team games are rarely, if ever, played outside of Ontario and British Columbia.

Fortunately, the recently founded Major League Rugby (MLR) provides a pathway for Canadians to play at a professional level without having to move to Europe or the Southern Hemisphere. MLR also helps solve the issue of Canadian national team players’ lack of top-level game time in between international test matches. The Toronto Arrows (who compete in the MLR), provides a much needed professional base in Ontario (formerly everything that could be considered ‘professional’ in Canadian rugby was stationed in BC), and a model that Rugby Canada can follow. The Arrows have top class marketing and promoting, as well as impressive community engagement. In just one year of official competition, they have established themselves as a crucial cog in the Canadian rugby landscape.

With Canada’s 2019 World Cup pool-stage matches against juggernauts New Zealand and South Africa es predetermined losses, it gives Canada two games against Italy (who have beaten Canada the last five times they played) and Namibia (who Canada beat the last time they met in 2014) for a chance to improve on its dismal zero victory result last world cup. While a win (or even two) at this year’s World Cup would provide much needed optimism for Canadian rugby, it will not be enough to fix Rugby Canada’s struggles unless the deeper fundamental issues are addressed.