Kieran Crowley bemoans short turnaround for Canada
Thursday 1 October 2015 16:23, UK
Kieran Crowley admits that the short turnaround between matches has been tough on his side.
Canada fell to a 23-18 defeat at the hands of Italy on Saturday and have just a four-day break before tackling France at Stadium MK.
However, coach Crowley hopes that his side can take inspiration from an after-training school visit to prepare his side for the challenge.
He said: "That's the biggest challenge when you have short turnarounds, the mental side of it.
"You put a lot into it physically, but you also put a lot into it mentally. When I was involved in Test match rugby it used to take me about a week to come back down before I was ready to go again.
"We had training at Leicester Grammar School, lunch with the school, and then an assembly, so hopefully those sorts of things help freshen the mental side a little bit."
One player to feel the benefit of the break, which involved a rendition of the national anthem and a question and answer session, is captain Tyler Ardon, who retains his place for the Pool D clash.
"You have got to get away from rugby for a bit," Ardron said. "We have been together since the beginning of July, so it's good to get out and do something different."
Crowley has opted to freshen up his side from the starting XV that faced Italy, with five of the players coming into the team playing in their first Rugby World Cup, something that Adron thinks could work in his country's favour.
"It's good to have some of the inexperienced guys because they don't know what the expectations are as much," said Adron. "They are just coming in and playing another team.
"Maybe a little bit of naivety almost, in terms of what everybody thinks we're meant to do, is good for some of us."
Canada: 15 Matt Evans, 14 Phil Mackenzie, 13 Ciaran Hearn, 12 Nick Blevins, 11 DTH van der Merwe, 10 Nathan Hirayama, 9 Phil Mack; 1 Hubert Buydens, 2 Aaron Carpenter, 3 Doug Wooldridge, 4 Brett Beukeboom, 5 Jamie Cudmore, 6 Kyle Gilmour, 7 Richard Thorpe, 8 Tyler Ardron (c).
Replacements: 16 Ray Barkwill, 17 Djustice Sears-Duru, 18 Andrew Tiedemann, 19 Evan Olmstead, 20 Nanyak Dala, 21 Gordon McRorie, 22 Harry Jones, 23 Conor Trainor.
