Men's teams split in the first two days

June 6th, 2008

After the first two days, the men's national teams are 2-2. Each team (Canada A and B) lost their first game against Saintes D2 and N3 (2nd and 5th division in France), but won their second game against Royan N2 and Cognac PN (4th and 6th division). Players need to adapt to each other and recover for their long trip. After a day off today (thursday) they will replay against Saintes tonight, we will see now if they progress and are really clicking together.

Here are players comments on each game.

June 3rd: CANADA B 29 vs SAINTES N3 33

Comment by Matt Ruf: It was our first game together as a team and we could clearly see lack of timing between players. However, we fought hard in the first half, inspired by Simon Bronsard, the team finished tied at half time (14-14). In the second half, we stay close with Saintes (N3) up to the last few minutes of the game, 1 or 2 turnovers and lack of precision in shooting did it for us and Saintes won 33-29. It was encouraging for us and we saw a lot of nice things during the game, such as the potential of Casper Bilton, our new Danish, Canadian teammate.

Scorers: Asselstine 2/4, Bronsard 7/7, Shacker 4/7, Truong 0/0, Yaassoub 0/0, Gaudet 5/9, Cann 2/3, Frank 3/5, Bennett 1/5, Surroosh 0/0, Bilton 5/10 - Goalies: Hasty 9/19, Ruf 13/31, Phillips 2/7

June 3rd: CANADA A 23 vs SAINTES D2 29

Comment by Rich Ryll, the first game was a bit of a shocker for Team Canada. We came out fairly well to start but seemed to still be a little tired. Saintes D2 was a strong, fast and agile team and had pressured us from the start. We had a few chances to convert for goals but their goalie was playing well. Their core defence was well organized and very effective. Canada turned over the ball a few too many times which resulted in a 14-12 first half. The second half we had a flourish to start but again we turned the ball over with bad passes and passive play. The Saintes team makes us pay our mistakes with few fast break. We stood tall to make a stand in the last 3 minutes to come within 6 goals. Saintes win 29-23. For a beginning game we didn't know what to expect from one another and still a little bit of nervousness come into play. Oh well, on to game two.

Scorers: Bessette 4/6, Bronsard 0/2, Asselstine 1/2, Devlin 2/5, Pion 0/0, Filiatrault 2/2, Bariteau 5/6, Godin 1/2, St-Laurent 1/1 Bertrand 5/7, Bonneville 2/4 - Goalies: Leduc 11/25, Ryll 8/23

June 4th: CANADA B 30 vs COGNAC PN 28

Comment by Brad Cann: Cognac was a much different team than the first team we played. They were very big but not very quick compard to us. After a rough start our team pulled together and by half time we were ahead 14-12. Unfortunately we also had a slow start in the second half and Cognac took the lead 21-18 at one point. However, we quickly regained the lead for good despite Cognac playing man to man defense for the last 3 minutes of the game. It was great to see that the team kept their composure through the many challenges we had throughout the match.

June 4th: CANADA A 26 vs ROYAN N2 20

Comment by Doug Bennett: The game started with a ceremony at the beginning. It was nice. The ceremony was about the foundation of Quebec. It lasted 30 minutes. The start of the game started at a slower pace, but picked up when the right back took a 14m jump shot. The canadian defence played a very aggressive 6-0 defence and it turned out that it worked Canada won 26-20. The host team cooked a huge seafood jambalia. It almost had every kind of seafood mix with a yellow curry sauce. There hospitality was wonderful and all the players that they had the best meal of the trip there so far.