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On Saturday evening Canada and Uruguay played in the first match of 2018 involving the Americas. It was the opening fixture of the 2018 Americas Rugby Championship. More importantly it was the first of two qualifying matches for Rugby World Cup 2019. The winner, on aggregate, will qualify for Japan 2019 as Americas 2.
Taking place in Vancouver the fixture was one which had many talking in the week leading up to match day. Canada are historically the superior side yet with Uruguay winning in Montevideo in 2017 there was more than simply doubt. Added to this was the records overall of both countries in 2017, a factor favoring Uruguay.
There was reason to be optimistic about Uruguay’s chances but the extent to which Los Teros won was predicted by few. The South Americans had the better of play for the majority of the match. They were more organized and made notably fewer errors.
Uruguay’s line-up was based predominantly on players based at home. The injection of European-based players boosted the side. Canada had less game time together which was apparent. The loss of fly half Connor Braid was a blow that the team failed to recover from. It underlined that rather than following a blueprint Canada was less structured than the visitors with individual brilliance weighing-in heavily.
For a complete match report click here.
Video Credit: Rugby Canada.
