O Canada! And the Samoans are coming

Samoa’s Alesana Tuilagi on his way to his third try during the 2011 Rugby World Cup pool D Samoa vs Namibia (AAP Image/AFP, Philippe Lopez)

Canada and Samoa had to wait until the middle of the second week of 2011 RWC tournament to get into action. But rather than being overcome by the awful tension that mounts when you are waiting and waiting for a big occasion to actually happen, both teams gave energetic and winning performances.

Samoa’s 49-12 over Namibia was expected. But it was achieved with the same explosive qualities than were on display when Samoa monstered the Wallabies two months ago.

Alesana Tuigali, the huge winger, 194cm and 120kg (as big as Jonah Lomu) powered over for three tries and at times looked unstoppable.

Canada’s victory was, on the face of it, more interesting because Tonga was expected to be a contender for second place after the All Blacks in Pool A. When this sort of prediction was made, it was assumed that this would involve defeating France, Canada and Japan.

After a strong second half against the All Blacks, which was helped by a series of professional stoppages by the Tongans and scrum collapses, it was thought that Tonga had the real stuff to progress into the finals, if they played really well.

A disciplined, aggressive and well-coached Canada side, though, put an end to all of that.

Tonga had a four-day turnaround after the tough match against the All Blacks and this posed problems for the composition of the side to play Canada.

As an aside, in 2007 and previous RWC tournament the Island teams have justifiably complained that the schedules are invariably unfavourable to them.

Samoa, too, has a four-day turnaround after their opening match when they play one of their crucial-must matches against Wales at Hamilton on Sunday.

Tonga played 11 new players against Canada, and it told. The cohesion of last Friday just wasn’t there.

The team also made a tactical mistake. They won the toss and played into the wind. This is the fashionable thing to do. But this old scribe who was brought up in windy Wellington here in New Zealad has studied the question of whether it is best to play with the wind or into it for decades.

I am convinced that you give yourself the best chance of winning a match by playing with the wind in your first half.

There are several reasons for this. Match statistics show that there are generally more penalties in the first half of a match than in the second half.

Teams playing with the wind find it easier to convert these penalties.

In the Tonga-Canada match, for instance, Tonga got several penalties early on which either could not be taken because of the wind factor or which were missed because the wind forced the ball away from the posts.

It is admittedly easier to play a running game into the wind because the ball is pushed to the runner rather than away from him when he is with the wind. But explosive running is easier with the wind. The wind gives an impetus to the runners.

As the Tongan game is based on explosive running, they should have started with the wind at their back. By the second half, of course, the explosive runners had run out of gas a bit after struggling into the wind.

This is a factor that is often over-looked in the wind debate. It is tiring playing into the wind. After 40 minutes, the Tongans like most teams playing into the wind, did not have the energy and dash needed to carry on and take the game away from Canada.

At half-time Canada were leading 10-7, but Tonga opened a 20-13 lead. Then Canada, into the wind, against a tiring team ramapaged back to score two tries.

How good are Canada? They are well-drilled, aggressive and play, led by their aggressive centre with a fine Canadian name DTH Der Merwe, with fire on attack and defence. Their set pieces seem to be good. The Australian James Pritchard is a good goal-kicker.

Canada, too, have a four-day turnaround playing France at Napier on Sunday. This match will tell us whether Canada can go further in the tournament or not.

There is one other comment to make about Canada and Samoa. That relates to the New Zealand connection in both teams.

The coach of Canada is Kieran Crowley, a steady All Blacks fullback (like Robbie Deans) in his playing days. Crowley is one of any number of New Zealanders with coaching jobs at this World Cup tournament.

There is Graham Henry for New Zealand, Robbie Deans for Australia, Kieran Crowley for Canada, John Kirwan for Japan and Warren Gatland as head coaches as well as assistant coaches like Steve McDowell for Romania and Tom Coventry for Georgia and, no doubt several other coaches I’ve not mentioned.

There are 38 New Zealanders playing for teams other than New Zealand in the tournament.

15 of these players are in the Samoan side and along with the Samoan community in New Zealand, plenty of New Zealanders have adopted them as their second side.

It is early days, of course, but the tournament in its first round of matches almost had some upsets that just did not quite come off. 

You have the feeling that in the second and third round of pool matches the threatened upsets will actually happen.

This is why I gave this article a title that included the first words of the Canadian national anthem, along with a sort of prediction that if there is to be bolter in RWC 2011 it could be Samoa.