Canada will throw everything in their locker at Ireland on Sunday after their Cork-born coach Pat Parfrey announced a full-strength side yesterday for the second meeting between the two countries.
As expected, the team will be led by their record points scorer Gareth Rees at out-half, on the premise that he will have recovered from the gastroenteritis which forced him to withdraw from the A international at Ravenhill on Wednesday.
Rees is one of two survivors from that sole previous meeting in the 1987 World Cup, the other being 36-year-old hooker Mark Cardinaal. Ironically, this pair scored all of Canada's points in their 46-19 defeat that day in Dunedin; Rees augmenting Cardinal's try by kicking 15 points.
All in all, it looks like a physically imposing, relatively experienced Canadian team. Granted, tradition decrees that the Canadians are generally confined to playing against a lower standard of international opposition, but even so their team boasts a cumulative total of 324 caps as against Ireland's haul of 141 caps.
With an average of 28, as against 26 1/2 for Ireland, the nucleus of the side has been together for quite a few years now and Parfrey is clearly intent on giving them one last tilt together at the 1999 World Cup before rebuilding the team afterwards.
To that end, the Canadian union have spent heavily on the next tier of players coming up, but for the moment they blood only one new player to the Test environment on Sunday, namely 25year-old right-winger Joe Pagano.
Almost two stone heavier up front, and five and a half stone heavier amongst the backs, the Canadian pack looks sure to be strong in the set pieces and, much like Canadian sides of yore and their A side on Wednesday night, will be fairly orthodox in how they use it.
Props Ron Snow and Richard Bice are big men, 19 stone, and big ball carriers. Their youngest players are in the second-row, where the all-round talents of John Tait has been the find of the season, appearing in all seven tests this season. The 24-year-old Cardiff lock once played with the Irish Colleges while studying in Jordanstown, partnering Jeremy Davidson in the second-row.
The experienced Al Charron is another big ball carrier up front, with John Graf a sniping scrum-half who can draw opponents and release these big runners around the fringes.
The bulky Rees can also take the ball on himself, and when all else fails can launch it huge distances. Rees, with 337 points in 42 tests, has partnered Graf on more than 30 occasions. "I'm looking forward to playing at outhalf. Even though I've only played there in a few practice games for Wasps (where he plays at fullback) it's the position I prefer."
In his inimitably light-hearted way, Rees says he was impressed by Ireland's first-half showing against the All Blacks, adding the rider: "We'd love to produce the same result but obviously we'd settle for a lot closer than that."
Parfrey, capped on the wing for Ireland against the All Blacks in 1974 while studying in UCC, is a kidney specialist who has been based on the rugby heartland of Newfoundland. His coaching cv takes in London Irish, Montreal Irish and Newfoundland, before he took over the international team in 1996.
Since the 1995 World Cup, when they hammered Romania 34-3, and extended Australia and the hosts South Africa to hard-earned 27-11 and 20-0 wins, Canada have won back-to-back Pacific Rim Series.
Their only blemish in six outings this year was a 32-31 away defeat to Japan, and they pushed Wales to a 28-25 success in Markham in their last outing in July.
Parfrey is known as a tough enough taskmaster and motivator. The Canadians will keep Ireland honest and make them work for their points, providing Brian Ashton's team with a good litmus test at this early stage of their development.
Canada: S Stewart (UBCOB/Harlequins); J Pagano (Yeomen), D Lougheed (Balmy Beach), R Toews (Meraloma), W Stanley (Vancouver Kats/Blackheath); G Rees (CastawaysWanderers/Wasps, capt), J Graf (UBCOB); R Snow (Dogs, Nfdld/Newport), M Cardinal (James Bay), R Bice (Vancouver RC/Valence D'Agen), J Tait (Barrie RFC/Cardiff), M James (Burnaby Lake/Perpignan), M Schmid (Abbotsford/Rotherham), A Charron (Ottawa Irish/Moseley), J Hutchinson (UBCOB/IBM Japan).
