Dear all,
I hope you enjoyed the Jubilee bank holiday weekend and managed to catch some of the Canada Cup action. If you missed any of the games, you can watch them all back here.
I thought it important to put the results, and importantly our approach, to Canada Cup this year into context for you all as it relates to our overall performance plan post-Tokyo.
Long-term strategic approach to development
Our approach to the Canada Cup this year was very different to previous years. As we look to build towards both Paris 2024 and LA 2028, Canada Cup served as a great opportunity for us to introduce some of our newer members of the squad to top 6 rugby, as well as an opportunity to experiment with some of our newer lines against quality opposition. Our team is noticeably different since Tokyo, and with the Paris cycle a year shorter, we need to utilise every opportunity to develop our players. Subsequently, only 6 players who represented GB in Tokyo were included at the Canada Cup, with the other 6 places filled by young new athletes.
Of course, we still want to be competitive and win games, however, we also need to accept that while we shift the focus to long term development, we may not always achieve favourable results in the short term.
Based on the above (gaining as much exposure to high-level competition), we set ourselves the target of making the medal matches so we would get that valuable extra game, giving us an additional opportunity to test out new lines against quality opposition.
Many positives to take away
By starting off with a great performance against Australia and a gritty victory against France, this enabled us to finish in the top 4 and secure that all-important 6th match. During this match against a full-strength Denmark, we were able to remain very competitive whilst giving valuable court time to all of our new players. With a number of experienced GB players left at home for this trip available to come back into the squad as we build towards the Worlds and beyond, the present, as well as the future, looks bright for GBWR.
Getting new players classified
From a classification perspective, it was a very successful tournament. Luke Collier received his first international classification whereby Dave Ross and Ollie Mangion both received their 2nd. All players were classified in the class we had anticipated which is always pleasing and enables us to plan with relative certainty.
Moving forward
Keeping perspective on our overall trajectory is important as we build towards the World Championships in October. We could dominate at the upcoming Tri Nations in July and Quad Nation’s in September, but those wins become redundant if we don’t perform at the World’s. So from a performance perspective, as long as individuals, and as a squad, we make positive progress, even if the game results don’t reflect that, we will still be on track. We have made real progress since the Euros, and will now look to build on the experience of the Canada Cup. We need everything to come together at the right time in October and we certainly have both the opportunities, and time to make this happen. If all goes to plan, every other result in 2022 will be simply referred to as “part of the process”.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
All the best,
Jason Brisbane
CEO GBWR
