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Canada’s path to the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan all of a sudden looks a lot simpler, thanks to bizarre circumstance.

Heading into the weekend, Spain looked set to claim the final European qualification for next year’s tournament in Japan. All they had to do was beat Belgium in Brussels, something which seemed likely given the Spaniards had been playing very well and just upset Romania to put themselves in the driver’s seat, while the Belgians had only a win over lowly Germany to hold up this year.

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But that all came to a crashing halt after the Belgians upset the Spanish 18-10.

To say almost no one expected that isn’t an exaggeration. What it meant was Romania, who had been seen as the favourites to win the final European spot when the calendar turned to 2018 and who have been causing nightmares for Canada for years, leapt back above Spain and are off to the world cup.

The Spanish team had drawn plenty of media attention, a rarity in a country where soccer dominates the headlines. It had been 20 years since Spain had qualified.