Churchill Cup Preps Coach for World Cup
The Churchill Cup rugby tournament in Denver is providing Canadian side coach, Kieran Crowley with the opportunity to check out his team and start choosing his World Cup squad.
The Rugby World Cup is only 15 months away and Crowley will be watching the Canadian team's performance to check out which players will make up the potential dream-team to represent the country.
Canada traditionally performs well at the Churchill Cup, finishing fourth in the competition last year.
The team will play the French on June 13th on the same day that the English side (the Saxons) play the United States.
The New Zealand born Crowley will be keeping an eye on two five cap props, Andrew Tiedemann and Doug Woolridge.
"They're both young props who we need to get as much rugby in as we can and see how they perform," said Crowley.
"Now we've got to really focus in and try to see who's going to step up and make the most progress," he added. "It's like that in a lot of the positions."
Crowley is keeping his fingers crossed that none of his more problematic positions get injured, more specifically hooker position currently covered by Captain Pat Riordan and Mike Pletch.
"If one of those fell over and got injured, we've never exposed another hooker at this level," said the coach. "We hope our players don't get injured but when you're coming towards a World Cup, you can't go with that mentality because you've got to know where your players site."
