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For wheelchair rugby fans looking for an indication on which teams will win a medal at the Paris Paralympic Games, the opening day of the 2024 Canada Cup only added to the uncertainty.
The prestigious tournament, featuring the world’s top six teams, began on Friday at Richmond Oval in Vancouver and in the five matches played, only defending Paralympic champions Great Britain came away without a win.
Reigning world champions Australia, the United States, Canada and France all played two games, winning one and losing one apiece, while Japan defeated Great Britain 47-44 in their only outing.
The Australians will count themselves extremely lucky to have not lost both matches on day one.
After going down to Canada 58-54 to open the tournament, the Australians returned to the court less than five hours later to face France, who had earlier caused a sensation by demolishing the current world number one ranked United States 53-46.
And while the Steelers looked in control when they took a 38-35 lead into three-quarter time, the aggressive and confident French outfit forced three turnovers and conceded just one in the final quarter to level the scores at 51-all with less than 10 seconds remaining.
Needing something special to snatch victory, it took all the guile and explosive power of Australia’s talisman Ryley Batt to score the decisive goal with 0.6 seconds left on the clock.
The obvious emotion from the Australians at full-time was not one of jubilation, but relief. It was clear they knew they had just dodged a significant upset.
“Well, that was an interesting game,” Australian coach Brad Dubberley said wryly.
“Holding that good lead to start the last quarter, I would have been happy to just go goal-for-goal for a few minutes, but we leaked a few turnovers quickly and gave the French some belief that they could stay in the game.
“After putting ourselves into a commanding position, it was disappointing to let them back in.
“There is stuff that we definitely need to sort out and clean up now before the Paralympics [in August].
“It turned into a war there to finish the game which sucked, but better to work on these things now, than in Paris.”
The Steelers’ focus now turns to tomorrow’s double-header against Great Britain (4am AEST) and Japan (10am AEST).
“Both those teams are high quality opponents and we’ll need to improve tomorrow,” Dubberley said.
“The aim will be to apply pressure and try to get away to an early lead so we can look to our bench and get back to being on schedule at this tournament.
“So far we’ve got some good info as move towards the Paralympics. All of our players got good some game time today in both games which is important. We move on from here.”
2024 Canada Cup – Wheelchair Rugby
Richmond Oval, Vancouver, CAN
Day 1 Results
- CAN 58 – 54 AUS
- FRA 53 – 46 USA
- JPN 47 – 44 GBR
- AUS 52 – 51 FRA
- USA 53 – 51 CAN
Australian Steelers – Upcoming Fixtures (times in AEST)
Sat 8 June
- 4am – AUS vs GBR
- 10am – AUS vs JPN
Sun 9 June
- 7am – AUS vs USA
Mon 10 June
- 3am – 5th vs 6th
- 6am – Bronze Medal Match
- 9am – Gold Medal Match
