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Mark Anscombe is finally getting a look at some of his stars.

DTH van der Merwe is in. Conor Trainor is in.

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And so are a pair of mild surprises: Connor Braid and Phil Mack.

Mack, a scrum-half, announced his retirement from rugby sevens this summer, and pointed to a future in coaching. But the allure of XVs remained.

“I want to end with some Ws,” he said over the phone from Victoria on Thursday. Mack last played XVs for Canada at the Rugby World Cup a year ago, a winless campaign which left Mack and his teammates with a bitter pill.

Mack went on to play his final season of sevens, which also ended in frustration, crashing out of the final Rio Olympic qualifier in June.

“I still want to keep testing myself,” he said. The thrill of the test match is still there, too: “getting ready for kickoff, nothing really replaces that feeling.”

The Canadians face Ireland in Dublin on Nov. 12, Romania in Bucharest on Nov. 19 and Samoa in Grenoble, France, on Nov. 25.