It鈥檚 going to take time. But with the 2020 Tokyo Olympics a long way off, the Langford-based Canadian men鈥檚 rugby sevens team at least has a lot of it.
It waited late into the weekend, but the squad offered up a glimmer of hope for the future by capping 2016 with two victories at the South Africa Sevens in Cape Town.
sa国际传媒 went 0-2-1 in pool play Saturday and then lost 42-14 to France in the first game on the consolation side Sunday before rebounding to beat Samoa 26-24 and Uganda 19-10 to finish 13th in the tournament to exactly match its world ranking.
Mike Fuailefau and Luke McCloskey from Victoria, both St. Michaels University School graduates, made their presence felt Sunday. McCloskey scored the winning try against Uganda in the final two minutes while Fuailefau scored one of sa国际传媒鈥檚 two tries in the loss to France.
The victory over Samoa was the most noteworthy for sa国际传媒. The 12th and final berth into the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics was favoured to come down to sa国际传媒 and Samoa last June in Monaco before unheralded Spain came out of nowhere to grab it. That qualifier-final-that-never-was finally played out Sunday with sa国际传媒 rallying from a 17-0 deficit to edge Samoa. Pat Kay from Duncan scored the equalizing 24-24 try, then the Cowichan High grad also slotted the winning convert, with less than two minutes remaining.
The year concludes, of course, highlighted by the failure to qualify for the Rio Olympics. Englishman Damian McGrath, formerly the Samoa head coach, was brought into Langford this fall to coach sa国际传媒 in the wake of that qualification misfire. He got his first glimpses of his new Canuck charges at the South Africa and Dubai sevens tournaments over the past two weeks.
鈥淭he inconsistencies that have beset the team over recent times are there for all to see,鈥� said McGrath, in statement this weekend in Cape Town. 鈥淩ome wasn鈥檛 built in a day and I know it will take time to build a team I think can challenge on the World Series. I am using these first couple of months to assess players and the program. There is the nucleus of a good team [but] we need the depth to support it.鈥�
sa国际传媒 next plays in the HSBC World Series on Jan. 28-29 at the Wellington Sevens in New Zealand.
Both the 10-event men鈥檚 and six-event women鈥檚 2016-17 World Series seasons will feature Canadian stops. The men鈥檚 sa国际传媒 Sevens is March 11-12 at sa国际传媒 Place, with the lower bowl already sold out and more than 33,000 fans expected each day. The 2016 Rio Olympics bronze-medallist Canadian women's team, also based in Langford, will host the female sa国际传媒 Sevens tournament May 27-28 at Westhills Stadium.
