Canada’s Men’s Rugby Team fall to Chile 36-25 at Municipal Stadium Francisco Ribeiro Nogueira in Brazil

October 21, 2022 (São Paulo, Brazil) – Canada’s Men’s Rugby Team began their two-game Americas Rugby Trophy series with a 36-25 loss to Chile at Municipal Stadium Francisco Ribeiro Nogueira in São Paulo, Brazil on Friday.

Canada’s tries came from Ben LeSage, Lindsey Stevens and Josiah Morra as well as 10 points from the boot of Cooper Coats to round out the scoring for the visiting squad.

“Full credit to Chile today,” said Canada’s Head Coach Kingsley Jones. “They never gave up and are a passionate team so congratulations to them. In terms of our team, I am pretty proud of all of them. Some familiar faces in the team who haven’t played in a long while but to those senior players, well done to them for going the distance.”

Jones added: “The younger guys and the sevens players that have come into the team I thought were exceptional. All of our young players on the bench got the field and experienced this level of rugby”

Friday’s non-capped match against the Chileans was the first of two in Canada’s American Rugby Trophy campaign, a three-country development competition which also includes host Brazil. Canada will face the Brazilian side on Wednesday October 26 at 3:30 p.m. PST / 6:30 p.m. EST once again at Municipal Stadium Francisco Ribeiro Nogueira in São Paulo.

“We will regroup and look forward to playing Brazil next week. We expect a tough challenge but for us our challenge will be to gel quickly with a limited amount of preparation time.”

LeSage got his Canadian side on the scoreboard early, scoring the game’s first try before Coats slotted the conversion to put Canada up 7-0 less than five minutes into the match. Coats later added two penalty kicks to his team’s total, but the Canadians found themselves down 16-13 at the half time break.

Chile tallied another penalty kick and their second try of the game early in the second half to extend their lead to 26-13. However, the 13-point deficit Canada faced was quickly reduced to six after replacement hooker Lindsey Stevens got over the line for his Canadian squad. Coats was again successful on the conversion to make the score 26-20 in favour of the Chileans.

Not long after, Chile scored a third try just before Morra scored Canada’s third of the game. With the score now 33-25 and five minutes remaining on the clock, Chile slotted a penalty kick to push their lead to 36-25, the final score of the match.

Jones named a starting fifteen filled with international experience including captains Lucas Rumball and Ben LeSage, alongside Kyle Baillie who returned to the forward pack after missing Canada’s last two test matches against Belgium and Spain in July.

From Canada’s Men’s Sevens Team, Coats got the call from Jones to wear the number 10 jersey and was joined by fellow sevens teammates David Richard, Morra and Josh Thiel to begin the match. Later in the game, Alex Russell and newcomer to the sevens program, Callum Botchar, came off the bench for Canada.

Current Pacific Pride player Matt Klimchuk, along with program graduate Emerson Prior, were both subbed into the match and combined for more than 30-minutes of playing time in the forwards.

Canada now turns their attention to the last match of the Americas Rugby Trophy competition against Brazil on Wednesday October 26th with kickoff scheduled for 3:30 p.m. PST / 6:30 p.m. EST. Broadcast details will be confirmed with the host Union and announced prior to the match.