Canada’s Men’s Rugby Team loses first of two matches in Tonga

Thursday August 10 (Nuku’alofa, Tonga) – In their first meeting in Nuku’alofa since 1999, the home team took the win, as the Ikale Tahi won 28-3 over Canada’s Men’s Rugby Team on Thursday afternoon in Tonga.

Both teams were greeted on the field ahead of the anthems by the Tongan Prime Minister, the Honourable Hu’akavameiliku. This season, in addition to being Tonga Rugby Union’s centennial, marks the first time that Tonga has hosted international test matches since 2017.

Tonga struck in the first three minutes to take an early 7-0 lead. Eight minutes later, a penalty kick from Peter Nelson got Canada on the board with three points.

Tongan captain Sonatake Takulua broke away from Canada’s defence to further his team’s lead in the 18th minute, with a clean conversion putting the score at 14-3. Despite spending a significant amount of time within Tonga’s 22 metre line and attempting to generate opportunities off the scrum, Canada was unable to score. Tonga managed one more try in the final minute of the first half, heading into half-time with a 21-3 lead.

“We put ourselves under pressure that we didn’t need to right from the start,” said Canadian co-captain Lucas Rumball. “I thought we regathered really well. We got back to the game plan. What really let us down, not just in the first half, in the second as well, was our completion under pressure. Too many knock-ons, too many missed errors, handles in the lineout, those kinds of things. If we can limit those and collect on them, I think we would have put up a lot more points.”

Five minutes into the second half, George Moala took a red card for a dangerous tackle on Ben LeSage, sending Tonga down to 14 players for the remainder of the game. The only scoring in the second half would come from the Ikale Tahi, whose converted try in the 51st minute put the score at 28-3.

“We need to finish,” said Rumball. “We’re going to be very disappointed I think, reviewing this game, looking at the stats and things like that. It felt like we had all the possession, it felt like we had all the ball, it felt like we were playing in the right areas--just not able to finish and putting ourselves under so much pressure. Then they capitalize on our mistakes right away. So I think that’s the big takeaway, is it’ll be our ability to finish next week.”

Siôn Parry, Travis Larsen and Mitch Richardson all entered the game in the second half to earn their first caps for Canada’s Men’s Rugby Team. Izzak Kelly also earned his first cap in the starting 15.

“There’s no way to recreate that feeling of a test match, the pressure, the emotion, all those things,” said Rumball. “You can come close to it in some competitions and the MLR and things like that, but there’s nothing like a test match. So for the boys who got to experience their first and experienced that pressure, hopefully they build off that.”

Canada’s Men’s Rugby Team returns to action for their second match against Tonga on August 15 at 3:00 pm local time (August 14 at 7:00 pm PT / 10:00pm ET). Follow Rugby Canada on social media for updates.