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Canada’s fourth match of 1999 saw the Pacific Rim Championship move to Toronto, where the USA were waiting for their rivals at Fletcher’s Fields on June 19. The Canadians had won seven straight over the Americans dating back to May 1996 and had conceded only six defeats and a draw heading into the 29th meeting of the two sides.
Jack Clark’s Eagles entered in better form. They had beaten Tonga and Fiji in San Francisco before coming up short to a revamped Japan side in Honolulu. This was their second-last match of the Pacific Rim tourney with only one more to follow ahead of Rugby World Cup 1999.
It was an experienced USA side with the exception of loosehead prop Joe Clayton who was on debut. Future Eagles coach Tom Billups was in his final run with the team and behind him were second row stalwarts Luke Gross and Alec Parker. Dan Lyle captained a fearsome back row including Dave Hodges and former NFL linebacker Richard Tardits.
The backs were less settled with David Niu playing just his fourth international, though he had the exceptional Kevin Dalzell to ease the pressure in the halfbacks. Winger-turned-commentator Brian Hightower featured as did the USA’s all-time leading try-scorer Vaea Anitoni.
Dr. Pat Parfrey had made five changes to his size that were defeated by Samoa in Vancouver. 38-year-old Mark Cardinal was recalled at hooker with John Tait starting in place of the unavailable Mike James at lock. Otherwise the pack was the same with the destructive Danny Baugh at openside flanker.
With Gareth Rees injured it was Bob Ross who started at No10 with his halfback partner John Graf assuming the captaincy. Winston Stanley was surprisingly left on the bench as Courtney Smith retained his spot with established star Dave Lougheed making his first appearance of the year on the vacant wing.
EDIT NOTE: The video source is a VHS that had unfortunately degraded over time. As it is the only immediately available video of this match we have opted to post it in its entirety nonetheless.
CANADA
1 Rod Snow, 2 Mark Cardinal, 3 Richard Bice, 4 Al Charron, 5 John Tait, 6 John Hutchinson, 7 Danny Baugh, 8 Ryan Banks, 9 John Graf (capt.), 10 Bob Ross, 11 Dave Lougheed, 12 Scott Bryan, 13 Kyle Nichols, 14 Courtney Smith, 15 Scott Stewart
Replacements: 16 Julian Loveday, 17 Winston Stanley, 18 Pat Dunkley, 19 Harry Toews, 20 Mike Schmid, 21 Jon Thiel, 22 Chris Whittaker
USA
1 Joe Clayton, 2 Tom Billups, 3 George Sucher, 4 Luke Gross, 5 Alec Parker, 6 Dave Hodges, 7 Richard Tardits, 8 Dan Lyle (capt.), 9 Kevin Dalzell, 10 David Niu, 11 Brian Hightower, 12 Juan Grobler, 13 Alatini Saulala, 14 Vaea Anitoni, 15 Chris Morrow
Replacements: 16 Bill LeClerc, 17 Shaun Paga, 18 Philippe Farner, 19 Kirk Khasigian, 20 Britt Howard, 21 Mark Williams, 22 Mark Scharrenberg
Referee: Nobufumi Tanaka (Japan)
Attendance: 4,500
