Well, the writing has been on the wall for awhile. People have called the USA the sleeping giant of Rugby for ages now and I think they are finally starting to awaken. They are going to overtake us simply by the sheer number of players they are going to have at their disposal. We aren't the only ones that have taken notice of this, a lot of the traditional rugby nations (especially the smaller celtic ones) are fearing what American power and money is going to do to their chances of remaining competitive.
The problem with our team right now is complicated, on one hand we have more players playing professionally then we ever have. We also have numerous players that are top flight players in some of the European professional leagues. On the other, while we have some flashy players, our players have been found wanting in certain facets of the game, most notably, the front row.
I've been watching and playing rugby since 2003 and have seen a big shift in the way Canadians play rugby. From my perspective, the coaching has vastly improved in this country and the sport has become far more competitive with fitness and skills improving in club rugby. At the same time, I see a problem in that our players are over-coached which is probably being influenced by the popularity of Canadian and American Football in this country. We undervalue certain parts of the game, particularly crafty forward play which we see as boring, to our own detriment.
For one thing, we have probably the worst scrum in the top 20 nations in World Rugby. This isn't just a problem with the national team, this goes all the way through Canadian Rugby because the scrum just isn't seen as important to us. The Canadian game is also being influenced by 7's Rugby, which encourages running rugby and lots of flair, so we are seeing lots of guys favoured for their speed and athleticism. Unfortunately, the skills of 7's don't necessarily transfer to the 15's game where skills such as Scrums, Lineouts and Mauls are far more important and maintaining possession is just as important as being fast.
Right now are national team is losing games because they can't hold on to the ball. They are 7-16 in the last three years and have basically become one trick pony's. Everyone who plays us knows what the game plan is, we are going to spread it wide and get it to our wingers who are very fast and very good. Unfortunately, this sort of game plan, cannot be executed properly if they don't have a strong platform to build of off. Canada has the worst scrummaging in the Top 20 and also one of the worst lineouts and our work at the breakdown is atrocious which is ironic because Canadian Rugby used to be known for it's hard hitting in your face style, not anymore.
We have lost to both Romania and Georgia, who we used to be better than, twice each in the past two years. Both times the victories were down to the Romanian and Georgian forwards physically dominating us. Our weakness in the forwards was exposed last November against Georgia when they started a fight and rattled us and then manhandled us for the rest of the game. Romania did the same thing to us with all their points last game against us coming from penalties awarded from scrummaging. They know we have no answer for it.
The match against Tonga in June was lost due to poor scrummaging as was our match against Japan. We had Italy's number a few years ago but they simply used their scrum and rolling maul to massacre us in the second half of that match emerging victors 25-16.
If Canada can't sort its forwards out than we are in for a terrible time at the World Cup as we have drawn three Latin teams (France, Italy and Romania) all of whom are known for good scrummaging and strong forward play. I won't even mention Ireland because they are ranked No 3 in the World and are excellent everywhere. They are going to absolutely smash us, as are the French probably but a few years ago I would have favoured our chances against Italy and Romania. With the way the forwards have played lately, I am not optimistic.
Here are a couple of videos of the Romanian scrum in their recent Nations Cup tournament against Spain, Namibia and Argentina, a tournament which they won and their scrum was utterly dominant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDkJv6NR5Ao
