Halifax native Cooper Coats is set to make his first senior international appearance after being called up to the Canada squad for this weekend’s HSBC Sevens Series event in Cape Town. The 22-year-old flyhalf joined the team during the week as a replacement for Lucas Hammond who was injured in Dubai in the only change to the 13-man roster.

Coats represented Canada at u18 level in 2014 before attending Acadia University on a soccer scholarship. He played club rugby during the summers with the Halifax Tars and Nova Scotia Keltics and in 2017 was drafted into the senior Atlantic Rock team for the Canadian Rugby Championship.

The selection comes at the end of a breakthrough year that saw Coats play for the Ontario Arrows in their spring exhibition campaign. He led the Keltics to an East Coast Super League title and then topped the CRC in scoring. Coats recently accepted an offer to join the centralized program in Victoria and was quickly snapped up by Canada Sevens coach Damian McGrath.

Canada has been drawn in Pool D along with Australia, Scotland, and Wales. The Cape Town tournament kicks off on Saturday. All matches will be streamed live on the CBC Sports website.

CANADA MEN’S SEVENS

Connor Braid, Admir Cejvanovic, Cooper Coats, Andrew Coe, Justin Douglas, Nathan Hirayama (capt.), Isaac Kaay, Pat Kay, Luke McCloskey, Josiah Morra, Matt Mullins, Jake Thiel, Adam Zaruba

POOL FIXTURES

Sat, Dec 8 – 10:15 local / 00:15 PT / 03:15 ET – vs Scotland

Sat, Dec 8 – 13:58 local / 03:58 PT / 06:58 ET – vs Australia

Sat, Dec 8 – 16:57 local / 06:57 PT / 09:57 ET – vs Wales