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Confirmation has come from Rugby Canada that the Quebec-Atlantic Rock are, in fact, the top seeds in the East Division of the Senior Men’s Canadian Rugby Championship. Confusion arose at the end of the match against the Ontario Blues on Tuesday evening when it seemed that aggregate score was the deciding factor in the tie-break.
The traditional tie-break method in a home-and-away series is aggregate score, as in competitions such as the RFU Championship and the Rugby World Cup Qualifiers. Adding to this an article published on the Rugby Canada website, submitted by BC Rugby, stated “it is the cumulative score over the two matches that will decide the seeding for the two sides in the semi-final in August.”
With the Blues believing that points differential in the home-and-away series was the deciding factor and requiring three points to win on aggregate, they opted for a kick at goal in the 79th minute of their game against the Rock instead of going for their fourth try of the game. Their final aggregate score was 44-43 in favor of the Blues.
The official stance of Rugby Canada, however, is that bonus points were in fact the determining factor, not aggregate score. Despite the competition format changing to home-and-away in 2018 versus the previous round-robin, the official tournament document was not revised and the ranking system that applied to the previous format was retained for 2018.
By scoring four tries in the first match against the Blues in Montreal, the Rock gained a try-scoring bonus and kept the Blues from securing a losing bonus point. As such the Blues will now play the defending MacTier Cup champion BC Bears in the second Semi Final on August 23 in Calgary, with the Rock facing the hosting Prairie Wolf Pack in the first Semi Final.
