Canada head coach Kingsley Jones has made seven changes to his starting team to face Georgia on Saturday in the first Test match of their November series.
Canada are fresh off an historic 51-9 loss to the Maori All Blacks in front of a sold-out crowd of 29,480 fans at BC Place in downtown Vancouver this past weekend. Following that match Jones’ outfit crossed the Atlantic and touched down in Tbilisi after over 40 hours of travel and three flights.
In the starting side, Djustice Sears-Duru and Jake Ilnicki join stalwart Ray Barkwill, while Evan Olmstead – who come off the bench last weekend after landing in Vancouver less than 48 hours before facing the Maoris last weekend after being released by Newcastle Falcons – slots in beside Josh Larsen. Larsen, who plays for Northland in New Zealand’s Mitre 10 Cup, is set to win his first cap on Saturday for Canada.
Canada’s back three sees the return of Lucas Rumball, who missed all four of Canada’s summer internationals, alongside Matt Heaton and Tyler Ardron.
Canada’s backline sees three changes and four returnees from Friday’s contest in Vancouver; Victoria’s Phil Mack will captain the side from scrum-half, while Pat Parfrey, Brock Staller and Friday’s Man-of-the-Match Andrew Coe return to fly-half, wing and full-back respectively.
Bolstering the side by returning from their professional clubs will be wing Taylor Paris and centres Ciaran Hearn and DTH van der Merwe, who combine for 122 caps, 230 points and 45 tries.
Saturday marks the second time Canada and Georgia have faced each other this year, with the 12th world-ranked Lelos defeated the hosts 13-0 amid horrid weather conditions in June at the Calgary Rugby Park.
Following Saturday, Canada will depart for Madrid to face 19th ranked Spain on the 18th before closing out 2017 against 9th seeded Fiji in Narbonne, France on the 25th. Georgia takes on Wales at Principality Stadium in Cardiff following Saturday’s fixture, before closing out their autumn series against USA on the 25th at Meskhi Stadium.
Canada: 15 Andrew Coe, 14 Brock Staller, 13 DTH van der Merwe, 12 Ciaran Hearn, 11 Taylor Paris, 10 Patrick Parfrey, 9 Phil Mack (c), 8 Tyler Ardron, 7 Matt Heaton, 6 Lucas Rumball, 5 Evan Olmstead, 4 Josh Larsen, 3 Jake Ilnicki, 2 Ray Barkwill, 1 Djustice Sears-Duru
Replacements: 16 Eric Howard, 17 Anthony Luca, 18 Cole Keith, 19 Kyle Baillie, 20 Conor Keys, 21 Kyle Gilmour, 22 Andrew Ferguson, 23 Guiseppe du Toit
Date: Saturday, November 11
Venue: Dinamo Arena
Kick-Off: 18:00 local (14:00 GMT)
Referee: Ben Whitehouse (Wales)
Assistant referees: Alex Ruiz (France), Craig Evans (Wales)
TMO: Neil Hennessy (Wales)
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