Canadian rugby has fallen a long way this century. Twenty years ago the Canucks were a competitive side, capable of defeating Tonga at the 2003 Rugby World Cup and getting to within one score of beating Italy.
Last month Canada lost to Chile and Romania, confirmation that a country which reached the quarter-final of the 1991 World Cup is now a third-tier nation. Having qualified for every RWC since the tournament’s inception in 1987, Canada failed to make the cut for 2023 and given the current plight of the national side, it would be a surprise if they make it to Australia in 2027.
In short, men’s rugby in Canada is in a mess, a sorry state of affairs for a country that has produced some world-class talent over the years.
As of this month, the national team is looking for a new head coach, someone brave enough to take up the challenge of reversing what some in Canada fear is the team’s terminal decline. Kingsley Jones departed after seven years at the helm and Rugby Canada must now decide who to appoint next to replace the Welshman.
Whoever it is faces an uphill task, according to Tyler Ardron, who won the last of his 38 caps in the RWC 2023 qualifier defeat by Chile in 2021.
The Castres lock recently told RugbyPass of his despair at the state of the game in his homeland. “I don’t see any clear path for them to go forward,” said the 33-year-old.
The veteran Canadian rugby journalist Ian Kennedy, who was the Canucks’ media manager between 1999 and 2007, shares Ardron’s gloomy prognosis. “Things have gone downhill at Rugby Canada over the last decades,” says Kennedy. “Rugby Canada let the senior men’s program flounder in favour of throwing its support, and money, behind Sevens and the women’s program. While the women have done very well, the Sevens team is now out of the picture. Hiring a new coach isn’t going to lead Canada to the ‘promised land’. Much more has to be done to right the ship at the board level.”
There are multiple pathway issues and we are really struggling to offer opportunities to the 18-to-25 age group
Frankly, one has to wonder who would want to coach Canada given the picture painted by Ardron and Kennedy. But there is one man champing at the bit, and that’s Jamie Cudmore.
Cudmore played alongside Ardron in the 2015 RWC, his fourth World Cup having first represented the Canucks in the 2003 tournament. He was a member of the XV that beat Tonga and can remember what it was like to play in a Canada side that was respected.
To witness their steady deterioration in the last decade has been difficult for him. Like Kennedy, Cudmore understands that Canada’s problems go far beyond who coaches the national team. “We haven’t addressed the growing of the game across the grassroots level,” he explains to RugbyPass. “There are multiple pathway issues and we are really struggling to offer opportunities to the 18-to-25 age group. When they’ve done high school they don’t go into a club or university, they drop off. That is where we need to concentrate.”
What frustrates Cudmore is that the talent is there, it’s just not being identified and nurtured. “In Canada we have the athletes,’ he says. “If you look at athletic performance as a whole, you can’t tell me that we’re not better than Ireland. But it’s rugby IQ – that is where we need to work and the 18-to-25 age group is so key.”
Currently, an ambitious 18-year-old school leaver has two options if he wants to develop as a player in Canada: university or the BC Premier League. But even the first option has limitations as the university season in Ontario and Quebec lasts only two months.
Cudmore cites the example of Uruguay as a nation that has gone in the opposite direction to Canada in recent years. “They concentrated on a core group of players, who are playing in the SLAR competition [featuring franchises from Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay), so they have a professional opportunity, which is something that we don’t have.”
There are a lot of things moving in the States and they’ve come on a lot in the last few years… their guys are playing much higher quality games, week in week out.
Canada’s sole professional team, the Toronto Arrows, were wound up 12 months ago, leaving them without representation in the Major League Rugby competition.
The MLR is the main reason why Cudmore says American rugby is in a far healthier place than Canada, despite the fact that the USA Eagles also failed to qualify for the 2023 World Cup.
“There are a lot of things moving in the States and they’ve come on a lot in the last few years,” he says. “Scott Lawrence (the head coach) has done a lot of the work. He’s built from the ground up, working with the collegiate and club system, and with the MLR above that. Their guys are playing much higher quality games, week in week out.”
It shows at international level. The Eagles won all their autumn internationals, defeating Portugal, Spain and Tonga, and they will head to next year’s World Cup qualifiers in good heart.
If Canada fail to qualify for the 2027 RWC, Cudmore fears the men’s game there “will die a slow agonising death”.
The pessimist might say that the end is already nigh. Two years ago an independent review into the administration of Canadian rugby described “a dysfunctional organization at odds with its athletes, staff and supporters”.
As a consequence Nathan Bombrys, a former managing director of Glasgow Warriors who also worked in Scottish Rugby’s commercial department, was appointed the new CEO and Cudmore says he’s “built a relationship with Nathan over the last few years and I believe he has a plan and he is implementing that plan”.
But there remains a small faction within Canada who believe Cudmore is the last person on earth who should be appointed head coach. One national newspaper refuses to publish anything positive about him and others insist he should never be forgiven for the series of tweets he sent in the summer of 2021 following the elimination of the women’s Sevens team in the Tokyo Olympics.
It will be a long painful process and I hope whoever is hired has the love and the patience to put the hours in to do that. I have the love and the patience. I’ve made mistakes in the past but my heart is in the right place.
Cudmore’s comments were crass but not outrageous. His heart-on-the-sleeve criticism was directed at the politics of the squad and not the players’ performance. In particular, he expressed his anger at the treatment of his friend John Tait, who was forced to resign as head coach of the Sevens squad after allegations of harassment and bullying; a subsequent investigation found there was no substance to the allegations.
As a result of his social media outburst, Cudmore was sacked as the assistant coach of the men’s national XVs team and head of the national development academy in British Columbia. He apologised at the time and three years down the line, he accepts he shouldn’t have reacted so brusquely. He says it was the result of “being stuck in a toxic work environment for over eight months, and seeing a good friend’s career blown up for no good reason”.
In the jargon of the age, Cudmore was ‘cancelled’ but he believes it’s time he was uncancelled. “I’ve put up my hand and apologised, and I have worked to try and rebuild bridges. If people are still mad about some cynical tweets three years later…is there no forgiveness?”
Ian Kennedy describes Cudmore’s tweets as “stupid” but believes the former lock is the best candidate for the head coach’s job. Cudmore certainly has the experience. Along with his four RWCs, he won the Top 14 with Clermont and appeared in two European finals before retiring in 2017.
The 46-year-old cut his coaching teeth in France, first with Oyonnax and then Provence before going back to Canada as head of the national development academy. In the last 12 months he has returned to France, gaining more coaching qualifications while working with Brive, Montpellier and Grenoble.
The men’s game in Canada is in crisis and it will require a committed and united effort to prevent the Canucks suffering a similar fate to Zimbabwe. They appeared in the 1987 and 1991 World Cups but haven’t been seen in the tournament since.
“We need to get Canada climbing back up the international ranking but it won’t happen overnight,” says Cudmore. “It will be a long painful process and I hope that whoever is hired has the love and the patience to put the hours in to do that. I have the love and the patience. I’ve made mistakes in the past but my heart is in the right place.”
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