Rugby Canada Announces Plan to Try to Crack the World’s Top 12

Rugby Canada has recently come out swinging when it came to their statement of intent for the years leading up to 2027. There are some big plans and even bigger ambitions over the next four and a bit years and while accomplishing them is going to take more than a bit of new talent coming through and luck, Rugby Canada’s CEO Nathan Bombrys has set out the task in front of them in clear detail.

It will be an interesting time to see how far the team is able to go. Furthermore, it will be fascinating to find out what the betting sites make of Team Canada as they try to improve on where they currently stand in the world rankings.

First and foremost in the plans that were released by Bombrys is to make Canada into a top 12 nation in world rugby. They currently sit 21st so a very basic look at climbing nine places would suggest that this is a task that is going to be workable but the top 15 have a much longer history of success in the sport than Canada and the failure to make the Rugby World Cup this year is going to be something that holds their ranking down.

The official world ranking of 21st puts Canada two places below Romania, one in front of Namibia and two in front of Chile, all of whom qualified for the World Cup in France. Chile were beaten 42-12 by Japan in their opening game of the tournament, Japan is the current 12th-ranked team. 

Canada beat Chile 22-21 at home in the World Cup qualifying but lost 33-24 in Valparaiso which shows there is a long way to go. That was the first time in their history that Chile has beaten Canada and it could not have come at a worse time.  

The highest ranking that Canada has ever had was back in September 2011 when for a single week they were number 11 in the world rankings. It shows that it can be done but things have gone a long way in the wrong direction in the last few years.

There needs to be a lot more money pumped in if this sort of aim is going to be remotely achievable. At present, the Rugby Canada income is only 16 million dollars a year. The funds to create the training centres that Rugby Canada is looking to build is going to have to come from companies who believe in the scheme enough to invest as partners of Rugby Canada. How easy it will be to find these companies is a question only time will be able to answer and something that the entire plan hinges on.

This was a huge story of disappointment as Team Canada failed to make the cut to head to France in the autumn to take part in the 2023 edition of the Rugby World Cup. Canada played in four qualification matches, a win and a loss against the United States and then a win and a loss as mentioned above against Chile.

Chile took a pasting in Pool D, losing 71-0 to England, 59-5 to Argentina and 43-10 to Samoa as well as that defeat to Japan. They never looked competitive at any stage at their first World Cup Finals appearance but at least they were there in the first place. That all suggests that Canada has a very long way to go.

The Rugby World Cup was only played for the first time in 1987, Canada qualified for the finals in each of the first nine editions before France this year but only made it out of the group stage on one occasion, in 1991. 

Canada won six games in their first five appearances in the Rugby World Cup Finals but have won just a single game in their last four. That includes 2015 and 2019 when they went a combined 0-7 and to make things worse, in the second of those, they would only score 14 points in the three games they played.

Respectability in the early days of the competition has become an abject failure and embarrassment more recently and failing for the first time in the history of the competition to even qualify for the finals in 2023 looks to have been the last straw for Rugby Canada with these new plans announced in a bid to not have that happen again.

This is a new biannual tournament that will be played for the first time in 2026. There will be two tournaments played over the summer period with the top 12 teams in the world in one of those and the next 12 teams playing in a challenger event.

It is an ideal stepping stone for Canada in the second-tier event to regularly play in a tournament setting against teams that are of a similar ability to measure themselves up. From 2030 which will be the third playing of the tournament, a promotion and relegation will be set up between the two levels.

There has been a lot of criticism of the event already with claims that it is elitist and has been done purely to protect the bigger nations. While that is understandable and it does mean that the smaller nations are not going to get the chance to play the big boys too often, it gives the right incentive for the lesser teams to come up with an action plan as Canada has done to break into that top 12 when the promotion and relegation kicks in an join them in the top group.

Rugby sevens is a part of the Olympics so both the men’s and women’s teams will be hoping that they can kick start the success of the plan in Europe. This is a huge part of the Rugby Canada plans, to use sevens as a way of learning some of the fundamentals of the sport before progressing to the full 15’s.

There are eight stops around the world on the sevens tour with the first two tournaments played recently in Dubai and Cape Town. The men would lose all three games in Dubai but they pushed both New Zealand and the eventual winners South Africa close before a tired-looking effort against Samoa. 

The women were much better despite not scoring a point in their opening game. They would then beat the USA and Spain to make it into the Quarterfinals where they came out on top against Ireland. An agonising 21-19 loss to New Zealand came in the semis but it was an excellent performance to start the sevens tour.

Moving onto Cape Town for the second leg where the women lost to the USA and to France in the groups but they did get a win against South Africa. It was a little disappointing given how well they had played in Dubai that they got a 41-0 thrashing from New Zealand in the quarter-final, especially given how close they had pushed them just a week before.

The men produced a stronger performance than they did in Dubai, also making it to the quarter-final stage and in horrible symmetry, they also failed to put up a point, losing 33-0 to Argentina. They had beaten New Zealand and Samoa in the group stage before a loss to Australia.

For those who would like to go and cheer on Team Canada in person, the sevens tour heads to Vancouver for an event played at BC Place from 23-25 February 2024. It is a much quicker form of play than the 15’s, still played on a full field so there is much more space which leads to higher scoring games. Two halves of seven minutes each allow for a quick match where the action is fast and furious.

At present, the women’s team are without question the highlight of the program. They are ranked 4th in the world and have made the semi-final stage of the World Cup in five of the last seven editions. They have safely qualified for the next one in 2025 which will be held in England in August and September of that year. 

Their most recent exploits saw them finish second in the first WXV I tournament in New Zealand where Canada’s only loss came against England, the clear number one in the world. Sophie de Goede who is rugby royalty in Canada was the top scorer in the tournament. Her father Hans was captain of Canada at the first ever Rugby World Cup in 1987 and her mother was the first ever captain of Canada’s women’s team.

The women’s team are full of players who are plying their trade in England which seems a smart move given that they are taking on players from the top-ranked side each week in the process. Both the Exeter Chiefs and Saracens have three Canadian players in their squad for those who are looking for a team to cheer on over there. 

On the men’s side, the difference is notable with almost all players remaining in North America to play their club rugby. Piers Von Dadelszen plays for Oxford University but he is the only one who plays in England while Sion Parry is in Wales playing for Pontypridd who participate in the Welsh Premier Division. 

Having players of the quality that the bigger rugby nations want them to play for club sides has to be the first step in the plan if Canada is going to grow and progress up the world rankings. There is little that any of the current team are going to learn playing in North America where the level of play is a long way below that played across the world.

That is the 64 million dollar question. Even the most fervent supporter will look at these plans with more than a little bit of surprise at how bold they are. Bombrys himself has said that the idea of becoming a top 12 team in the next four years is not going to happen but as a statement of intent, the plan has to be to aim high. 

Trying to be a little less awful than they currently are is not exactly going to light a fire under the right people to try to move rugby in Canada in the right direction. State an aim that is beyond the capabilities of the current squad and see if there is the correct response from the team in a bid to at least try to make it happen.

There needs to be a big effort to get more kids playing rugby and while this is not going to be a help to a plan that is only stretching to 2027 at this point, it is the only way that they are going to have any hope of achieving those goals even in the 2030s.  

The chair of Rugby Canada, Sally Dennis called the plan ‘ambitious but achievable’ and although we would only agree with half of that, there seems to be no lack of drive coming from the top, it just needs the rest of those involved in the sport in Canada to buy into what is being sold if they are to achieve the “One Squad” tagline that encompasses the scheme as a whole.

Rugby Canada has the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia as the endpoint of this new plan. The tournament will be expanded from 16 teams to 24 in 2027 so there is no excuse for missing a second straight World Cup, especially given these new plans. Getting to an expanded competition should be the absolute bare minimum, a second trip to the knockout stages needs to be the aim if this plan is to be close to a success.