Canada could be left on the side of the road in the U.S. Rugby World Cup

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Thirty years ago, there was a chat that maybe Canada might be a good place to host the Rugby World Cup. Really another era.

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“The next Rugby World Cup will not be held CanadaHowever, the 1999 4th Championship is not out of the question.f You can integrate this year’s progress. “ Arv Olson of Vancouver Sun confidently wrote at the beginning of the article on November 9, 1991. He quoted Alan Sharp, who was then the representative of Rugby Canada’s International Rugby Commission.

It is doubtful if anyone across our borders imagined the same thing. When the final vote for the 1999 tournament venue was held in March 1995, there were only two bidders. Wales and Australia are leading bids in five countries.

At that time, “Wales” won and an Australian was selected as the organizer of the 2003 event. (Originally co-sponsored with New Zealand, money (what we come back to) broke that partnership.)

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Canada most of the time continued to treading water.

A week before Sharp spoke to Vancouver Sun, then Canadian coach Ian Birtwell made a very different tone.

Canada challenged France by defeating Romania and Fiji in pool play to win the quarterfinals. In the quarter, they bravely fought New Zealand. (Looking back, the All Black Steam was one of the poorest teams of the era.)

Still, Bartwell was cautious.

“”The challenge now is build Appropriate program,Bertwell told Don Harrison of the state. “”We actually only have a few layers of veneer, and experience it even less.“

It’s pretty remarkable that almost every coach of the Men’s XV has spoken in similar language since then.

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It is doubtful whether the Men’s World Cup could be held. (Canada hosted the World Cup for Women with Less Attendance in Edmonton in 2006.)

Indeed, at best we were knocking on the first tier door. Do you remember when you defeated Italy, Samoa and Fiji?

But the moment the door to professionalism opened, the country began to slip.

This brings us to last week’s announcement that the Rugby World Cup will be staged in the United States 10 years later. Americans will host a men’s tournament in 2031 and a women’s tournament in 2033.

This may mean great for developing rugby south of the border, but it could be another story north of the border.In the past, Canada may have been a hosting partner with the United States.

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It’s no longer certain.

Still, Rugby Canada has an optimistic look. They had preliminary discussions with Americans about being able to host the game, but such a decision is still years away.

“We are excited to congratulate USA Rugby and hold the event in North America. Rugby Canada’s interim CEO Jamie Levchuk told Post Media last week.

Americans have already created a preliminary list of candidate cities: Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Birmingham, Alabama, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Glendale, Arizona, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami. , Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, New York-New Jersey, Austin, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Washington DC

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These are all cities with the NFL or major college football stadiums and are statements about the quality of the venue considering the tournament.

Can Canada compare to any of them? For example, BC Place has successfully hosted rugby in the past, but the list of comparable stadiums in the country is lacking.

And while we struggle to compete in the financial phase, it’s also the stage of play that hinders us.

After rugby turned professional in 1995, there were a few Canadians who were able to make their deal at the top of the game in places like England and France. However, the men’s national team, who bravely confronted the All Blacks in 1991, defeated Wales in 1993 and France in 1994, and made brave efforts in the 1995 and 1999 tournaments, began to slip in the new millennium. I did.

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Professional games have become high-speed trains and we have mostly continued to drive carriages.

Efforts to invest in developing young players after the 2007 Rugby World Cup have paid off as Canadians performed happily at the 2011 World Cup and showed more hope for the 2015 tournament … But they became a wall again in the years that followed. This was partly due to the lack of further player development and partly due to very poor recruitment options at the management and coaching level.

Participation in the 2019 tournament was the last gasp, and it took some luck as Canada may have had to beat Spain to reach its goal. However, Spaniards (and Romanians) are involved in the athlete qualification debate and are essentially excluded from the certification process.

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And of course, the Canadians crashed from the 2023 qualifying. This is not only because COVID-19 has moved the team off the field, but also because the player development program lags behind what both Uruguay and Chile have done.

There is a glimpse of hope in sevens rugby. Of course, women’s teams are running out of money year after year, but they’re still close to the top, but men’s XVs stay where they have money, and sometimes Canada can’t do things right. Especially now that I have resigned to play in a smaller country until the end of the 2023 RWC, the next decade has become really tough.

The country has been seen forever as a strange relative by the power of rugby. They are always present, so you have a duty to give the table a nice seat, but it’s a country where you don’t even know how to actually approach it. — Or do you care?

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Unlike the United States, there is no unlocked economic possibility for foreign rugby interests to daydream. There is no overwhelming population of athletes to tap.

We just exist. I play rugby. Some players have reached the quality of international stars.

But no one imagines our best day going to the best of the world and toes. There are people who do so about the USA Eagles, the country’s men’s representative.

World Rugby forces have long regarded the United States as a possible source of economic growth. And if there is a word that sports authorities around the world know about love, it is “growth.”

It’s pretty clear what is the reason for giving the US hosting rights: it’s a great untapped market. There is no doubt that they see the NFL Stadium as the venue.

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These are the largest and greatest sports arenas in the world.

So, “Surely Canada has been alongside our old friends and Americans for so long that you’ll be asked to host one or two games in one of those World Cups.”-Not sure. ..

As usual, Canadian rugby needs to show that it works. It’s just that we struggled very often to do so.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

twitter.com/risingaction

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