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Canadian Matt Heaton is staying positive by seeing the funny side of things of his error-prone Rugby World Cup debut against Italy on Thursday.

Italy smashed Canada 48-7 at the Fukuoka Hakatanomori Stadium with Heaton fumbling the ball right at the line, getting a yellow card and giving up a penalty try.

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“You have to have a brain of a goldfish and try and forget negatives,” Heaton told reporters. “It’s definitely always at the back of your mind. Now I’m getting tagged in all the Instagram memes and things like that. It’s quite funny. You have to have a laugh about it.

“You have to, otherwise you’ll just burn yourself out with stress. That’s no way to play. Just move on and catch the next one. I can’t do any worse any more.”

Heaton started the game on the bench but was thrust in due to an early injury to teammate Lucas Rumball.

“You try and play the cool cucumber all day,” the 26-year-old said. “I thought I had a good mental prep, but then as soon as I saw that I was coming on, the nerves were through the roof. It was baptism by fire.