Canada effectively dumped Tonga out of the World Cup yesterday with a breathtaking, come-from-behind 25-20 victory thanks to two late tries.
Canada trailed 13-20 with 13 minutes to go, but scores from Aaron Carpenter and Phil MacKenzie broke Tongan hearts at Whangarei, handing Tonga their second defeat with games to come against Japan and France.
“That was awesome, I’m so proud of the boys,” Canada captain Pat Riordan said. “We just said everything we achieve is in our hands so it’s up to us to change it [the score] — and we did.”
Photo: REUTERS
The result extended Tonga’s winless World Cup record against Canada and disappointed a legion of fans who had harbored hopes of a first World Cup quarter-final after the Sea Eagles’ battling opening defeat to New Zealand.
Canada edged a scrappy opening half thanks to the positional kicking of fly-half Ander Monro and a rampaging run from DTH Van Der Merwe, who burst through two tacklers to set up the opening score for Jebb Sinclair.
Tonga, plagued by handling errors, passed up six points when fullback Kurt Morath miscued two penalties from central positions, and were made to pay when Canada’s James Pritchard knocked one over at the other end on 26 minutes.
Tonga fielded 11 different players from the side, which frustrated the All Blacks, and they looked disjointed as their repeated attempts to run the ball broke down in a series of handling errors.
However, they were rewarded on the stroke of half-time as center Siale Piutau was released in space on the right and scythed through two defenders to score. Morath added the conversion to cut Canada’s lead to 10-7 at the break.
The game burst into life in the second half as the teams swapped penalties and then Piutau ran onto a short pass and accelerated through Canada’s defense on 53 minutes.
Canada were on the ropes, but they hit back when substitute center Conor Trainor muscled forward and No. 8 Carpenter capitalized by barreling through a sea of bodies for a try on 67 minutes.
Canada kicker Pritchard missed the conversion, leaving them two points short, but left wing Phil MacKenzie crossed again as the Maple Leafs regained the decisive lead 25-20 with just six minutes to go.
Hundreds of Tonga supporters gathered outside Whangarei’s Northland Events Centre more than two hours before kick-off, extending the ecstatic World Cup welcome New Zealand’s Tongan community has given its team.
Tonga and Canada, ranked at 12 and 14 respectively, have a long World Cup rivalry dating back to their first match in 1987, which the Maple Leafs won 37-4. Canada won their last World Cup match in 2003.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but