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Canada coach Mark Anscombe, captain Jamie Cudmore, and Japan coach Mark Hammett spoke to the media after Japan’s 26-22 victory over Canada at BC Place on Saturday. Below are their reactions to the entertaining and hard-fought match. Video courtesy of Bryan Kelly and Rugby Canada.
MARK ANSCOMBE – HEAD COACH, CANADA
“We finished really strongly in that last five minutes and I commend the guys’ attitudes, that was brilliant, but at international level you’ve got to kick your goals and we didn’t. If we’d only kicked one of them, we would have taken a shot at goal to win the game. That’s the way the game goes. It’s tough but that’s what it’s all about.”
“I thought some guys did really, really well. I don’t think our bench helped us too well today. I think that was a bit sloppy. There are areas we’ve got to address to make sure the guys pick up where the others have left off. We can’t give them 10 minutes to sort of get into the game. That hurt us a bit today, and some of the things our backs did.”
“There’s a lot of positives. We created opportunities and scored four tries. You always take that. There was some good play. Our defense for periods in that first half was excellent and that created opportunities for us. The forwards did well when they worked the ball through the middle, we made some good yards. The way we finished off, we kept our composure in that last five minutes and didn’t lose the ball. Those are great traits to have.”
JAMIE CUDMORE – CAPTAIN, CANADA
“We’re extremely frustrated. To play as well as we did, four tries to two, and still come out losers in the end is heartbreaking for us. We’ve got to work a lot harder and be a lot more precise so things like this don’t happen again. I’m pretty tired of losing.”
“We stayed in our systems. We worked hard together and almost came out on top. That’s a huge plus for us and we’re going to bring that into next week. Hopefully we can knock off the Russians on Saturday.”
“We’ve got to do a lot of the same things. We’ve got to be more precise in certain areas, definitely defense. I’ve played Russia a few times and they’re a lot like the Americans seven or eight years ago. They’ve got a lot of big, strong athletes and maybe lack a bit of rugby knowledge, but they’re catching up really fast. Especially with rugby now being an Olympic sport they’ve put a lot of money into it and they’ve got some good coaches over there and we’ve got to be very careful next week.”
“I’m extremely honored to have the privilege to lead these boys out. Seeing what they did for the majority of the game, and definitely those last 10 minutes, I’m extremely proud of them.”
MARK HAMMETT – HEAD COACH, JAPAN
“I thought it was obvious that it was both teams’ first test match. A few nerves, and the structure wasn’t perfect, but there was some really good things about it. Both teams looked to play. We looked to play the whole 80, I thought Canada came out a bit more expansive in the second half.”
“Obviously it will be a talking point with having a red card with 26 minutes to go. From my perspective, outside of the incident itself I’m really proud that we hung in there and defended for our lives. We also scored a pretty good try while we were down.”
“We did dodge a bullet, but we shouldn’t have even been lined up to be honest. As for the red card, I’ll have a look at it again. There’s been a lot of discussion in New Zealand and around the world about incidents like that. I can’t fully comment on it until I have another really good look at it. I’ve made comments in the past and then gone back and thought ‘well actually the ref was probably bang-on!'”
