Americas Rugby News Rugby news from across the Americas!
The highly anticipated rematch of the 2015 Canadian Rugby Championship final takes place at Fletcher’s Fields on Thursday evening. After an opening round loss to the Atlantic Rock, the Blues must stop the undefeated defending champions if they hope to regain the MacTier Cup. If the Wolf Pack win it could clinch the title, pending the result of the Rock-Bears fixture in St. John’s.
Ontario have made three changes to their match day roster from the side that beat the Rock earlier this month. International prop duo Tom Dolezel and Doug Wooldridge make a timely return to the team, with Dolezel starting at tighthead and Wooldridge to add pressure in the second half. Markham Irish hooker Brandon Black fills the reserve role in place of AJ Quattrin.
Eight further test caps feature in the strong home selection. Rob Brouwer and Eric Howard make it an all-Canadian front row, while Lucas Rumball and Andrew Wilson prowl in the loose forwards. Americas Rugby Championship standout Andrew Ferguson directs from scrumhalf, with 2007 World Cup tourist Derek Daypuck in the midfield and June test members Jordan Wilson-Ross and Dan Moor on the wings.
Clay Panga heads up a Wolf Pack side that includes ARC teammates Ryan Kotlewski, Jake Robinson, and Mozac Samson. Robinson starts again for injured Gordon McRorie, and there are two changes to the run-on side that beat the Bears in Esquimalt. Wayde Hodgen gets a run on the openside and James Buchanan fills in for the absent Ben Lesage in the midfield.
The bench sees the return of Matt Harrison with Liam Beaulieu dropping out. Grant Crowell replaces Kyle Morrison, and there is a familiar name to Canadian rugby fans in the form of Nanyak Dala. The 32-year-old flanker has recovered from injury to take up a role as an impact sub.
Ontario defeated a very similar side under the guise of an Alberta Select XV in May by a score of 19-9 and on paper a similar result seems a reasonable expectation, particularly given the critical loss of talisman McRorie. That said, the Wolf Pack are the form team in the Championship and were not championed by accident. This promises to have all the tension of a cup final and with 15 full internationals set to take part the standard of rugby should be high.
The match kicks off at 6:30pm local time. At the time of writing there does not appear to be a live stream for the match. Instead A recording is set to be broadcast on television and web by Rogers TV on Saturday, July 23, at 3:30pm ET.
[EDIT: The Blues have now confirmed the game will be be streamed live at the Rogers link, with television broadcast on Saturday as scheduled.]
ONTARIO BLUES
1 Rob Brouwer 2 Eric Howard 3 Tom Dolezel 4 Hank McQueen (capt.) 5 Mike Sheppard 6 Peter Milazzo 7 Lucas Rumball 8 Andrew Wilson 9 Andrew Ferguson 10 Mitch Richardson 11 Jordan Wilson-Ross 12 Derek Daypuck 13 Dan West 14 Dan Moor 15 John Sheridan
16 Brandon Black 17 Doug Wooldridge 18 Ryan Surgenor 19 Myles Dingwall 20 Marcello Wainwright 21 Josh Campbell 22 Kainoa Lloyd 23 Rich Lebel
PRAIRIE WOLF PACK
1 Peter Houlihan 2 Casey Reed 3 Ryan Kotlewski 4 Eric Lopatinsky 5 Conor Turner 6 Lucas Albornoz 7 Wayde Hodgen 8 Clay Panga (capt.) 9 Jake Robinson 10 Robbie Povey 11 Adam Bontus 12 James Buchanan 13 Mozac Samson 14 Conor Desmond 15 Graham Turner
16 Matt Harrison 17 John Braddock 18 Nick McAuley 19 Grant Crowell 20 Nanyak Dala 21 Jake Bentley 22 Cam Hall 23 Ian Shoults
