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The third and final stop on Canada’s UK tour takes place on Tuesday at Bridgehaugh Park, the long-time home of Stirling County RFC. Standing opposite will be Canada’s toughest competition of the trip – the Glasgow Warriors. Having dropped the two opening fixtures to Doncaster Knights and Ulster ‘A’, Canadian coach Mark Anscombe will roll out his most experienced lineup to try and close the tour on a high.
An unusual situation sees Djustice Sears-Duru lining up against his current clubmates, answering an SOS to first play in Ireland on Friday. Eric Howard and Ryan Kotlewski join in to an all-new front row, with Kyle Baillie sliding back into lock in place of absent Lucas Albornoz. Admir Cejvanovic starts on the flank for the first time with Travis Larsen earning his first ever start in Canadian colours, and Nanyak Dala runs out on the openside.
Gordon McRorie moves back to his favored scrumhalf spot with Wolf Pack teammate Robbie Povey outside him. Pat Parfrey starts in the midfield along with Mozac Samson. The outside backs are unchanged. Peter Houlihan joins Albornoz on the sidelines with a total of 10 players named to the bench.
Glasgow field five full internationals in the starting lineup with a further three Scotland 7s reps in the backline and one-cap test winger Rory Hughes on the bench. Alex Allan, Lee Jones, and captain Peter Murchie all have senior international experience with Scotland while there are two World Cup participants in US Eagles lock Greg Peterson and Fijian scrumhalf Nemia Kenatale.
Halifax, Nova Scotia, hosted a previous meeting between the two sides in a World Cup tune-up last August, with Canada coming away 19-12 winners. Both teams feature vastly different lineups for the return match. Kickoff is set for 7:35pm local time, 2:35pm Eastern, 11:35am Pacific.
GLASGOW WARRIORS
1 Alex Allan 2 James Malcolm 3 D’Arcy Rae 4 Sam Thomson 5 Greg Peterson 6 Callum Hunter-Hill 7 Matt Fagerson 8 Peter McCallum 9 Nemia Kenatale 10 Hagen Schulte 11 Lee Jones 12 Fraser Lyle 13 Nick Grigg 14 Junior Bulumakau 15 Peter Murchie (capt.)
16 Jamie Bhatti 17 Cameron Fenton 18 Jarrod Firth 19 Kiran MacDonald 20 Thomas Gordon 21 George Horne 22 Josh Henderson 23 Rory Hughes 24 Patrick Kelly 25 Robert Beattie
CANADA ‘A’
1 Djustice Sears-Duru 2 Eric Howard 3 Ryan Kotlewski 4 Conor Keys 5 Kyle Baillie 6 Admir Cejvanovic 7 Nanyak Dala 8 Travis Larsen 9 Gordon McRorie (capt.) 10 Robbie Povey 11 Dan Moor 12 Patrick Parfrey 13 Mozac Samson 14 Kainoa Lloyd 15 Jordan Wilson-Ross
16 Alex Mascott 17 Anthony Luca 18 Cody McClary 19 Adrian Wadden 20 Matt Heaton 21 Dan Joyce 22 Aidan McMullan 23 Guiseppe du Toit 24 Sam Hayward 25 Doug Fraser
