Canada's Evan Olmsted carries the ball against U.S. defender Nate Augspurger during their international rugby test at B.C. Place Stadium on Sept. 7, 2019.

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North Vancouver’s Evan Olmstead said ahead of Canada’s game on Saturday night at B.C. Place Stadium that he hoped his side would avoid a crushing finish like the one they suffered through the first time they played here in 2016, against Japan.

That night, a win was in their grasp, as they drove to the Japanese line. Djustice Sears-Duru got over the line, but the Japanese defence held him up.

It would have been a monumental win for the Canadians, less than a year after Japan beat South Africa at the 2015 Rugby World Cup. To beat the Brave Blossoms would have been a powerful talking point for a Canadian squad that was looking to forge a new identity in the wake of the disappointing winless run at the previous fall’s Rugby World Cup.

On Saturday, the Canadians found themselves with victory in their sights in the waning stages of the match against the USA, the final showdown before the 2019 Rugby World Cup kicks off later this month in Japan.

Despite starting from a strong attacking position with just a handful of minutes left on the clock, and a scrum inside the American 22-metres line, set nearly in the middle of the field, the Canadians couldn’t find a way forward.

Eventually, winger Jeff Hassler made a small breakthrough but the Canadians couldn’t exploit it and the visitors were able to take possession and that was that.

It was a cruel finish to a game where the Canadians may not have thrilled but they did a lot of things well, including racing out to an early 12-0 lead.

“Those one-percenters, the little individual work-ons I think will get us over the line,” Olmstead said after the game, before making a comparison with the last match between the two sides in July, when the Americans outclassed the Canadians in every respect and won 47-19.

”I think as a team, we can tell that our preparation has been a lot better than it was for that first U.S. game a month or so ago. You know, we’re getting better each week. But it is just those little things that we need to improve on to make sure we go from second place to first place.”

His captain, Tyler Ardron was equally honest.

“Really frustrating,” Ardron said of the losing streak. The Canadians haven’t won since February, at home against Chile. Five straight international matches.

“We’re probably going to be happy when we think back to five or six weeks ago and we played them and the improvements we made but we’re still not quite at the place we want to be,” he said. “We don’t have much time so it’s going to have to be a couple weeks of hard work and get ourselves in the right spot to hopefully tip over Italy.”

And while the run hasn’t been great of late for the Canadians, they’ve still shown progress.

“It is no doubt we’re better. I mean, yeah, you can see the way we defend and to hold them to however many points they ended up with tonight was a big step up from where we were five or six weeks ago,” Ardron said. “But yeah, obviously we’re not we’re just not quite happy with the points we’re scoring. And I think if we can put a couple more over we’ll put a lot of teams away.”

Time, Ardon, noted, is running out. Italy looms first, a match that will need everything to go right for Canada if they are to finally burst their own streak of poor results. The Italians did get thumped by England on Friday, 37-0, but they’re also a long-standing professional squad, who regularly play against the likes of England, France, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

But the opposition remains more than they can handle. The Italians aren’t on a high either, as they have just one win in 2019, an 85-15 thrashing of Russia last month.

Because of this, even though the Italians go in as strong favourites, the Canadians believe they’re vulnerable.

But, as we saw on Saturday, so are the Canadians.

The Italians will know that.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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