The next month will be the school of hard knocks for Canada's young rugby wing, Taylor Paris.
At 18, he is expected to become the youngest player in Rugby World Cup history when Canada opens its bid Wednesday against Tonga. He has until then to dream that his swift feet can outrun reality.
Defending champion and host New Zealand thumped the Pacific islanders 41-10 in the 20-team championship opener, and Canada is a long shot to win even one of the 15-a-side games in its pool. Canada, with no pro rugby league and top players gathered from outposts across the world, is ranked 14th by the International Rugby Board and was drawn with No. 1-ranked tournament favourite New Zealand, France (4), Tonga (12) and Japan (13). Only the top two teams from each of the pools advances to the quarter-finals of the tournament, which runs Sept. 9 to Oct. 23. Canada has gone beyond the pool stage only once – in 1991 – in the 28-year history of the Rugby World Cup.
That doesn't stop Paris from being optimistic. The native of Barrie, Ont., stands 5 foot 11, 185 pounds, not big by rugby standards. He's a pup learning the hard way to play a game dominated by big, experienced, mature men. But what a classroom to learn in, he said.
"I'll just take in as much as I can and learn from the more veteran guys around me," Paris tweeted The Globe and Mail as he prepared for the opener. "There are some great leaders on the team who help the young boys out."
He said he's rooming with veteran Adam Kleeberger and has talked with teammate Ander Monro and captain Pat Riordan about the World Cup.
"And they help me out, but there's only so much you can learn from other people telling you," Paris said. He insists he wants to learn first-hand. "The only way to find out what these tournaments are like is just to experience it yourself," he said.
Paris inherits the crown of the youngest World Cupper from 19-year-old American Thretton Palamo, who was a substitute in a 2007 game against South Africa. Paris is regarded as a building block for rugby's future in Canada; the seven-a-side version of the game, well suited to his running skills, will be an Olympic sport at Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
The youngest of four brothers born in a five-year-span, Paris says playing the shortened 14-minute sevens game is tougher than a full 80 minutes with the 15's because of the fast pace and constant sprinting.
In New Zealand, he is expected to play in all four of Canada's pool matches.
Just getting to rugby-fanatical New Zealand – where the Canadian team was greeted by a traditional Maori warrior with a spear and a blood-curdling scream, then landed a two-metre shark on a fishing expedition – was a victory for Paris. He'd broken his hand four months ago and wasn't sure he'd heal in time to be selected for the squad by head coach Kieran Crowley. "But I got so excited when I saw my name on the 50-man [training]roster. … This is the absolute pinnacle."
Observers say Paris plays with edginess and emotion, even when he is overmatched by bigger opponents. "It's just part of the game," he said. "I don't get too intimidated, it doesn't help your game."
He attended high school at home – Barrie Central Collegiate – where he took up the game five years ago as an outside centre. "I wasn't going to play originally," Paris said. "I thought I was too small."
However, he learned the game quickly, and his speed helped him avoid collisions. He was invited to a tryout for the Ontario under-18 squad. Paris made the team and helped the province win its first gold medal at the Canada Summer Games in Prince Edward Island.
Based on his play at the event, Paris received an invitation to attend school and play rugby for King's College in England.
Paris was featured on Sports Illustrated's Faces in the Crowd page in September of 2010 after he led the Ontario under-18 team in scoring to win Canada's national championship tourney in 2010. He had rambled for nine tries in five games. From there he represented Canada internationally in sevens at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in October.
Then he was picked to join the 15-a-side nationals in Belgium in November. In his second game, he scored two tries against Spain in a 60-22 romp at Madrid.
Though still of junior age, Paris played a sevens tournament game with the senior squad, in 2010 in New Zealand in front of 35,000.
While Paris's world moves ahead, head coach Crowley, a 1991 World Cup player capped 19 times for New Zealand, sees his side over-all is struggling to keep pace in a rugby world where everyone else is advancing.
Canada brought in former New Zealand scrum coach Mike Cron to work with the Canadian pack, and Canadian scrum coach Mike Shelley says the scrum has improved. But Canada will have a rough start because it is still outsized by Tonga.
"We had a couple of good recent wins against the United States, but our performances weren't great," Crowley said. "We had some positives against Australia's Barbarians but we are not where we want to be just yet performance wise."
Crowley told The Scotsman newspaper he had no hesitation in saying where Canada needs to improve: "It's our reaction and execution under real pressure and in attack that we will have to focus on. We got away with not getting a lot of ball and living off our defence in the States and it was the same against the Australian Barbarians, when it took us 40 minutes to get to the pace of the game."
Crowley says Canada's goal is to finish ahead of Japan and Tonga in its pool and gain automatic qualification for the 2015 World Cup.