A thrilling, literally last-minute victory over Kenya in a must-win weekend tournament has kept the Canada Rugby Sevens men in the 2024 HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series. That league of the world’s best is contracting from 16 to 12 men’s teams next year, to match the women’s league and Olympic tourney. After faltering in recent years Canada has been in the danger zone. 

After a quarterfinal finish at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, the men’s program lost many of the core veterans including former UVic star and Canada’s co-flagbrearer Nathan Hirayama, who retired as #3 all time in World Sevens Series scoring (1,859 points).

Close games and comebacks in a nail-biting weekend 

With two teams already cut, the season’s final weekend saw London’s Twickenham Stadium pit 14th-ranked Canada vs. Kenya (13), Uruguay (12), and lower-tiered upstart Tonga for the sole remaining spot.

Canada had momentum coming in, having finished a season-best (by far) fourth in France the weekend before with comfortable wins over Kenya and Uruguay. But Canada lost Saturday’s opener to Kenya, an early lead curdling into a 24-19 loss in the final minute of the game.

That made each remaining game must-win, and Canada’s came back over Uruguay to stay narrowly alive 21-19 before blowing out Tonga 43-7 and securing top spot on point differential when all relegation candidates finished 2–1. 

The finale was then a rematch with Kenya, with the outcome ending either Canada’s decade as a core team or Kenya’s two decades. This too went down to the last minute, with a 7-7 tie game. But this time it was Canada scoring as the clock wound down. The ball crossed the field through all seven players before finding home in a try by Alex Russell, who earlier hung a hat trick on Tonga, to leave it 12-7.

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Rewatch that game here.

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Disaster avoided after tumultuous recent years

Dropping down into a lower tier could even have spelled trouble for the team’s presence in Langford. Recent years’ evaluations of the national rugby performance program have questioned whether this mild-weathered but far-west location is ideal.

For the national program, performance has dipped from the highs of the women’s 2016 Olympics bronze, with the men losing in Tokyo’s Sevens quarterfinals and the women narrowly missing the playoff. It has also grappled with culture concerns, with a 2022 independent report supporting 2021’s numerous toxic-culture allegations by the women’s program players and finding problems throughout the organization.

Most recently, the development program faced scrutiny when a young athlete was suspended after becoming a suspect in a shirtless nighttime theft of a taxi.

The women’s 15s team is currently Canada’s strongest. Its fourth-place World Cup finish last fall was led by Oak Bay’s own superstar Sophie de Goede, a finalist for the worldwide 15s Player of the Year award.

Women's Sevens finish season 9th in world

The women’s Sevens team completed its season earlier this month weekend, and were joined in France by de Goede. They finished the tourney 10th and dropping into 9th for the season.

Both will now host an Olympic qualifier here in Langford in August.

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