Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Canada aims to finish Rugby World Cup on winning note

The Langford-based Canadian rugby team finds itself in the eye of the hurricane. It’s an apt metaphor that is almost literal, both off and on the pitch. The 2011 earthquake and tsunami flattened Kamaishi, Japan.

The Langford-based Canadian rugby team finds itself in the eye of the hurricane. It’s an apt metaphor that is almost literal, both off and on the pitch.

The 2011 earthquake and tsunami flattened Kamaishi, Japan. Now it’s Typhoon Hagibis that is bearing down and threatening the 2019 World Cup-closing match between Canada and Namibia at Kamaishi Recovery Memorial Stadium today (8 p.m. on TSN). The decision on whether to play or cancel the game was to be made after press time.

Canada and Namibia are 0-3 in the very difficult Pool B, which includes legendary powers New Zealand All Blacks and South Africa Springboks and Six Nations side Italy, and both the Canadian and Namibians have targeted this game for victory. But only one will get it. If it isn’t a Canada win, expect a hurricane of criticism as the team returns to Westhills Stadium, because the national side will then have sunk even deeper from second-tier status into the third tier of world rugby. This game is all about retaining Canada’s tenuous perch in the second tier.

Namibia has never won a World Cup game. Canada must guard against being the African nation’s first victim.

“[Namibia] are a very capable side and they’ve performed really well against all those big teams,” said Canadian head coach Kingsley Jones.

“They are well organized, they’re fast, and they want to play physical, so it’s a big challenge for us.”

This will be the final World Cup game for a number of players on the veteran-laden Canadian side. That includes DTH van der Merwe, who will start today in front of a large travelling group of family and friends from the Island, to extend his Canadian record of most World Cup games played to 16.

Former Castaway Wanders Jake Ilnicki, Djustice Sears-Duru and Ciaran Hearn will complete their long career journeys from Windsor Park by also starting today. Tyler Ardron will again captain Canada from the No. 8 slot.

Former University of Victoria Vikes stars Luke Campbell, out of Oak Bay High, and Dustin Dobravsky, out of Shawnigan Lake School, will dress for the first time and will be looking to make their World Cup debuts off the bench. Dobravsky was flown in this week from YYJ after Mike Sheppard was ruled out due to concussion

Veteran Phil Mack of Victoria, who started at scrum-half in the last game against South Africa, did not get the call this time to even dress and his World Cup career is over.

“It was a difficult selection. It might be the last time some of these guys get an opportunity in the shirt,” said Jones. “Everybody really wants to be a part of this big game. Some tough decisions for us.”

Also not dressing is Josh Larsen of Parksville, sitting out a three-game suspension for his red card against South Africa, despite that his classy post-game apology in the Springboks dressing room went viral. The Island native, raised in New Zealand, will sit out the Namibia game and the first two games of the Major League Rugby season with the New England Free Jacks.

Kamaishi is in Iwate prefecture, of which Victoria’s sister city Morioka is the capital, and the crowd is expected to be strongly pro-Canadian because of that connection.