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Canada looked a little shaky on the first day of the NACRA Sevens, but pulled through comfortable winners in all three games by a collective score of 134-7. While those numbers look convincing enough, a more discerning observer would not be overly impressed with the first two performances. The heat, the returning players, and the level of opposition all seemed to throw things off slightly.
In the matches first against the Bahamas and then Trinidad & Tobago, Canada looked sluggish and sloppy. Several passes went astray under little or no pressure, and the cohesion that has built throughout the season just wasn’t there. There was a stunned silence when Agboola Silverthorn showed Sean Duke a clean pair of heels barely 30 seconds into the second match, an eeriness as Aason Lewis kicked the conversion as if he’d been there before. Canada replied fairly decisively through Adam Zaruba, but the lethargy seemed to stick until the cavalry showed up in the second half.
By the time the third match arrived, the cobwebs seemed to clear and that seamless fluidity of movement took shape once again. Phil Mack and Ciaran Hearn looked to have worn off the mid-day ring rust and both Taylor Paris and Tyler Ardron found a steadier rhythm. Of course it’s hard to gauge preparedness when you win by 50 points, but the end of the day looked a heckuva lot sharper than the start.
As far as the lineup went, Liam Middleton mixed things up and made liberal use of the substitutes bench. With the unfortunate news that St. Vincent had withdrawn from the event only 24 hours prior, it means that the Americans played one less pool game. A good night’s rest in between should curb that discrepancy in leg-wear somewhat, but Middleton will no doubt be planning his moves very carefully to ensure his key players are fresh for the final.
Though it may sound presumptuous to proclaim them finalists already, the disparity in class in glaring. The opposition is entirely amateur and the two North American sides are streets ahead by any measure. While the big wins sound nice, it can be tricky to get patterns of play working against pictures that don’t look quite right. Added to that, both sides have had to do little defending. The first minute of the final is going to be a colossal shock to the system.
The whole tournament just feels uneasy. We’ve been waiting for two years knowing it would come to this, and it still feels like a storm sneaking up behind the clouds. The big game kicks off at 5:34 in the afternoon Eastern time. Twenty minutes later we’ll all have vertigo, and one team will have their golden ticket. The other, a creaky stool at the last chance saloon.
