To paraphrase the philosopher Santayana, the Island-based Canadian rugby team failed to learn from history and was doomed to repeat it Tuesday at the 2015 World Cup. Romania scored 17 unanswered points in the final 28 minutes to stun the Canadians 17-15 before more than 30,000 fans at Leicester City Stadium.
It was the largest comeback to win a game in World Cup history and sent the reeling Canadians into deep and raw self-analysis.
鈥淚鈥檇 personally like to apologize [to sa国际传媒鈥檚 supporters] because that just wasn鈥檛 good enough,鈥� captain Jamie Cudmore of Squamish told a world-wide audience in his post-game TV interview.
sa国际传媒 returns from England tonight to the Rugby sa国际传媒 Centre of Excellence in Langford after another costly yellow-card penalty and another tight loss in the waning moments. Where have Canadian fans seen that movie before? That has been the script of the year for No. 18 sa国际传媒, so maybe it was only fitting the World Cup campaign ended the way it did with Romania scoring crucial late points with a man advantage.
sa国际传媒 will finish the World Cup 0-4, although the games against No. 17 Romania and No. 14 Italy (23-18 loss) were there for the taking. That followed a summer of World Cup preparation Tests in which sa国际传媒 dropped several close matches, including two on the final play of the games.
The frustrations bubbled over in the post-game TV interviews following the disheartening collapse Tuesday. How many lessons can sa国际传媒 absorb, wondered aloud head coach Kieran Crowley of Mill Bay, who has known World Cup success as a player with the champion New Zealand All Blacks in 1987.
鈥淲e have to stop learning. We can鈥檛 keep learning all the time,鈥� said the usually stoic Crowley.
鈥淲e gotta get some bloody wins somewhere. We had that game here to win today and we lost it. Well done to Romania. You can鈥檛 say anything else. There is always something to build on. But the bottom line is we didn鈥檛 win today and we should have won. [Romania鈥檚] scrum and drive got going and we were naive in a lot of our decision making.鈥�
What a difference four years makes. sa国际传媒 returned home from the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand with a win and a tie, flowing beards and as the new-found darlings of Canadian sport. Rick Mercer even came to the University of Victoria campus to film a segment for his CBC show in which one of the Canadian Beardos, Vikes star Adam Kleeberger, publicly had his beard shaved off for charity.
There won鈥檛 be such a post-World Cup afterglow this time.
鈥淲e were playing good rugby and thought we were on our way,鈥� said Jeff Hassler, in his international broadcast interview for being named man of the match.
Both Canadian try scorers Tuesday 鈥� Hassler and DTH van der Merwe with his fourth of the World Cup 鈥� have worn the dark blue of James Bay Athletic Association. They were part of 18 players in the World Cup who came through Island clubs JBAA, Castaway Wanderers and UVic Vikes.
Nathan Hirayama of the UVic Vikes kicked a convert and finished with 20 points in the World Cup.
