Americas Rugby News Rugby news from across the Americas!
Scotland put Canada to the sword with a one-sided 48-10 win at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton on Saturday evening. The visitors controlled the match from start to finish with seven tries in all including a hat-trick to replacement hooker George Turner.
A late change saw Ben LeSage replace Doug Fraser in the No13 shirt for Canada, with the latter dropping out do to illness. Reports suggested that a number of the Canadian players had been affected by a virus in the buildup but it’s not clear how much that affected their performance.
The match itself was largely repetitious. Scotland controlled possession and Canada were content to sit back and tackle, which they did repeatedly but inevitably the overlaps appeared or penalties were conceded. They only rarely pressured with line speed and had little success contesting the tackle.
The Scots were slow starters, perhaps a product of the weeks passing since the end of their domestic season. An early penalty goal went to Sam Hidalgo-Clyne and then winger Byron McGuigan dove over in the corner for the first try. Shane O’Leary replied for Canada with a three-pointer but it was a rare moment of success and soon after Noah Barker was sent to the bin for a dangerous clear-out off the ball.
To Canada’s credit the defense held out with the numerical disadvantage but the cracks were showing and Scotland eschewed further shots at goal for attacking lineouts. Their maul proved highly effective, generating clear go-forward and a wide-open blindside welcomed Ruaridh Jackson for an easy score before the break.
The second half was virtually all Scotland. What little ball Canada controlled they kicked away aimlessly and only rarely got on the front foot. Turner had replaced an injured Fraser Brown in the first half and he went over for his first try with the second half whistle still echoing through the stadium.
A try was finally conjured by Canada but they needed help to do so. After finding themselves in Scottish territory they created an overlap only for Jackson to slap down the ball before it could reach a wide-open DTH van der Merwe on the wing. The referee correctly awarded the penalty try and sent Jackson to the bin for his troubles. Sadly for Canada that would be the last moment of respite with 30 minutes of more defending ahead.
Magnus Bradbury scored the first of four unanswered Scottish tries with Turner getting two more in quick succession, both on the back of driving mauls that went over with worrying ease. Lewis Carmichael rounded out the Scottish account, the replacement lock striding through the line to score on debut. To make matters worse for Canada their captain van der Merwe was carried off in the 79th minute and it will be a surprise if he is fit to play any further part in the June tests.
Canada coach Kingsley Jones spoke after the game about the team’s lack of offense.
“We didn’t help ourselves. We kicked away possession and we didn’t really need to. We needed to make those guys tackle, and we didn’t do that enough.”
The team will now regroup during the week while traveling east to Ottawa for a match against Russia. Scotland head south to Houston for a match against the Eagles.
SCORING
CANADA 10
Tries – Penalty try (47’)
Pens – S. O’Leary 1/1 (14’)
Yellow cards – N. Barker (17’)
SCOTLAND 48
Tries – B. McGuigan (9’), R. Jackson (34’), G. Turner 3 (42’, 67’, 71’), M. Bradbury (55’), L. Carmichael (79’)
Cons – S. Hidalgo-Clyne 2/3 (35’, 43’), B. Kinghorn 3/4 (56’, 72’, 79’)
Pens – S. Hidalgo-Clyne 1/1 (4’)
Yellow cards – R. Jackson (47’)
TEAMS
CANADA
1 Noah Barker, 2 Ray Barkwill (16 Eric Howard 77’), 3 Jake Ilnicki (18 Cole Keith 54’), 4 Paul Ciulini (19 Conor Keys 63’), 5 Evan Olmstead, 6 Lucas Rumball (20 Dustin Dobravsky 63’), 7 Matt Heaton (17 Djustice Sears-Duru 19’-28’), 8 Luke Campbell, 9 Phil Mack, 10 Shane O’Leary, 11 DTH van der Merwe (capt.) (21 Andrew Ferguson 79’), 12 Nick Blevins, 13 Ben LeSage (22 Cole Davis 73’), 14 Jeff Hassler, 15 Patrick Parfrey (23 Theo Sauder 56’)
SCOTLAND
1 Allan Dell (17 Jamie Bhatti 51’), 2 Fraser Brown (16 George Turner 27’), 3 Simon Berghan (18 Murray McCallum 61’), 4 Ben Toolis (19 Lewis Carmichael 61’), 5 Grant Gilchrist (capt.), 6 Magnus Bradbury, 7 Jamie Ritchie, 8 David Denton (20 Luke Hamilton 73’), 9 Sam Hidalgo-Clyne (21 Ali Price 51’), 10 Ruaridh Jackson, 11 Byron McGuigan, 12 James Lang (22 Adam Hastings 48’), 13 Chris Harris, 14 Lee Jones (23 Mark Bennett 36’), 15 Blair Kinghorn
MATCH OFFICIALS
Referee: Shuheo Kubo (JRFU)
Assistants: George Clancy (IRFU) & Derek Summers (USAR)
TMO: Marc Nelson (USAR)
