John Moonlight led Canada’s rugby sevens team to victory at the Pan Am Games last summer before the largest Canadian audience for the sport.

Then, he hopped a plane to join the 15s team for the Rugby World Cup — one of the largest international sporting events — before returning to sevens, hoping to play in its Olympic debut in Rio.

“I basically lived out of a suitcase for 200 and some days,” Moonlight said. “My mind was all over the place.”

And then there’s the issue of his fluctuating weight — lightening up his six-foot-two frame to be fast and fit for the athletically demanding sevens game but then bulking up for the traditional 15s game.

There is no doubt the 28-year-old from Pickering can play both — he’s been named Rugby Canada’s men’s sevens player of the year three years in a row and has been approached to play 15s professionally in Europe — but, even he admits, “it’s tough.”

Too tough, Rugby Canada decided recently.

Going forward, Rugby Canada will have a more distinct separation between the programs and the athletes. That’s a decision some rugby insiders would have liked to see much sooner.

“I’ve been beating that drum since I came in,” says sevens head coach Liam Middleton, who started at the end of 2015.

Canada didn’t win a 15s game at the World Cup, and the men’s sevens team are down to one final chance to qualify for Rio through a repechage tournament in June. Canada’s women’s team has qualified for the Olympics.

It used to be routine for great rugby players to play both sevens and 15s, but Olympic inclusion has resulted in such growth of the sevens game that is no longer possible, Middleton says.

“The physical requirements, technical and tactical requirements, even the mental requirements of the sevens game are very different. It’s become a sport on its own rather than a shortened version of the game.”

Sevens captain Moonlight agrees.

“For each team to succeed, I think we need to have that split,” he says.

But that creates a dilemma for the top Canadian players, who will now have to decide whether to try and make a living from the 15s game or pursue the Olympic dream with sevens.

“There’s a problem with money,” Moonlight says. “You can’t sustain yourself on a Canadian card.”

He is referring to the annual stipend Sports Canada provides for elite athletes.

By cobbling together various other pools of money, including tournament bonuses and charitable athlete-funder CAN Fund, Moonlight figures they can get up to about $25,000 a year.

“So after the Olympic year there are going to be lots of guys seeking pro (15s) contracts. Overseas they’re making over $80,000 — the draw is so big for guys to switch over.”

Moonlight says he’d like to finish out his rugby career as a sevens player but he worries about the future of the program if Rugby Canada doesn’t find a way to keep talented younger players in sevens.

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Middleton knows what some of his sevens players already have given up.

“I really respect that sacrifice they make towards being an Olympian for Canada.”

By the next Olympic cycle, he thinks, the decision won’t be so difficult.

The sevens game has already grown dramatically in audiences and sponsorships. And the recent moves of rugby superstars, including New Zealand’s Sonny Bill Williams and Australia’s Quade Cooper to their national sevens teams for a shot at an Olympic medal, will further grow the sevens format, Middleton says.

“Money will come into the game and will eventually trickle to the players,” he says.

On Friday, the Canadians take to the pitch in Las Vegas for the fifth leg of the HSBC World Series before returning home for the inaugural Canada sevens tournament in Vancouver. That takes place March 12-13 and the 56,000 tickets are already sold-out.

“Toronto’s Pan Ams did a huge amount for rugby in Canada. We really wanted to inspire the people who came to watch there and we hope we can back that up in Vancouver,” Middleton says.

The team’s immediate focus is on the back-to-back March tournaments but getting to Rio is by far their biggest goal, and challenge, of the year.

Phil Mack, another Canadian player who did the rugby double last year, said the Olympics was easily a bigger draw for him than carving out a living in the 15s game.

“If you talk to me or any of the other guys I’m pretty sure we’ll be happy with the choice — once that tournament is over in June,” he says referring to the last-chance qualifier in Monaco.

There are 16 teams and one Olympic berth for the winner.

“We’ve put a lot of work in and we wouldn’t be sticking around doing this if we didn’t think we had a realistic shot.”