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“Refining play” is a bold comment, suggestive that the middling results achieved this season by the men’s squad were disappointing.

“Rugby Canada feels that this new structure will lead to improved alignment and performance for all its high performance programs, and that must be the priority at this critical time,” he said, leaving further clues.

The clues there would be “improved alignment and performance”; the latter, improved performance being obvious, while improved alignment harkens back to the restructuring that took place last summer, with the sevens program being placed underneath the men’s program; that was a difficult transition, one that led to the sevens players going on strike and moving to unionize.

That dispute was settled in October, leaving little time to prepare for the season. The men’s team started behind the eight-ball and McGrath said more than once that his squad was working from behind as a result.

The Canadians only managed one top-eight finish this season under McGrath and struggled badly at the Hong Kong 7s, putting in a dismal performance that McGrath called the worst he’d seen in his three seasons in charge of Canada. The team rebounded somewhat a week later, but still finished tied for 11th at the Singapore 7s.

McGrath was hired in 2016, replacing Liam Middleton, who was fired after Canada failed to qualify for the Rio Olympics. He quickly rejuvenated the program, which had seen a dip in morale under Middleton, who himself had replaced the very popular Geraint John. (John led the Canadians to a sixth-overall finish in 2013-14, tied for their best ever, and ended up getting a big job offer from the Australian Rugby Union afterwards.)