Canada’s men’s rugby squad knows they have a lot to improve on after Saturday’s outing.
George Turner struck for three tries as Scotland came away with a 48-10 victory over Canada in a test match in front of a crowd of 12,824 at Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do, but there’s no better place to start than against a team of that calibre,” Canada head coach Kinglsey Jones said.
Scotland is currently ranked sixth in the world, while Canada is a distant 21st.
“The truth is, we didn’t help ourselves,” Jones said. “We kicked away possession when we didn’t really need to. We needed to make those guys tackle, and we didn’t do that often enough.
Canadian scrum-half Phil Mack said the effort was there, even if the final score was a bit distressing.
“Obviously very disappointed,” he said. “You play the game to win. But I’m very proud. Our boys stood in front of them for 80 minutes.
“Can we get better? Hell yes we can. But I’m proud to say I was on this team.”
Scotland got off to a quick start, taking a 3-0 lead on a penalty kick by Sam Hidalgo-Clyne in the fourth minute. The Scots extended their lead five minutes later when Byron McGuigan plunged into the corner for an unconverted try.
Canada got on the board in the 14th minute on a long penalty goal boot by Shane O’Leary.
Scotland extended its lead to 15-3 when Ruaridh Jackson found a lane to score a try in the 34th minute.
The visiting side came out strong to start the second half as well with a converted try in the first two minutes pushed across the line by Turner.
Canada was awarded a penalty try in the 47th minute to close the score to 22-10.
Scotland kept up the pounding pressure with a converted try from Magnus Bradbury in the 55th minute.
The Scots capped off the match with an unconverted try by Turner in the 68th minute, who then earned the hat trick with his third of the game four minutes later.
Lewis Carmichael went in unopposed in the dying seconds for Scotland to run the score up even further.
“There is a lot to work on, but we improved as the game went on,” Scotland captain Grant Gilchrist said.
“A bulk of the players hadn’t played for weeks and we showed a bit of rust, but for the first stop on the tour, we are proud of the way we finished off the game. There are certain aspects that were excellent and certain ones that we need to improve on, but that is why we are out here.”