Tyler Ardron – Canada's demise is not all Kingsley Jones' fault

Former Canada captain Tyler Ardron believes Canada’s decline as a rugby-playing nation in the last decade is not purely down to one man, the outgoing head coach Kingsley Jones.

Ardron believes the issues lie deeper than that, within the Rugby Canada board, and he fears that the team he once led with pride will fail to qualify for a second consecutive Rugby World Cup.

On Wednesday it was announced that Jones, 54, would be stepping down from the head coach role, which he has held since 2017, and the search is now underway to find his successor.

Ardron is enjoying a playing career swansong in Castres in France but hasn’t been involved in Canadian rugby since he made the last of his 38 appearances in the RWC 2023 qualifier defeat to Chile in 2021.

And he says that whilst Jones’ imminent exit was inevitable given he had only won 13 of his 48 Tests in charge, the blame cannot solely rest on the Welshman’s shoulders.

“We could have the best coach in the world there in Canada and with a record like that, you wouldn’t expect someone to stay, that’s the professional sport I have always known. In the world of high performance, changes need to be made when the results are like that, and I am surprised that it took this long,” the 33-year-old said.

“I have never been a guy to hold back any punches, I tell it like it is. The coaches have to be held accountable, but I don’t blame him (Jones) solely for what is happening.”

For Ardron, the Canadian national men’s team’s problems go way back to the departure in January 2016 of Kieran Crowley, who the loose forward describes as “one of the best coaches I have ever worked with”.

Crowley moved on after Canada lost all four matches at RWC 2015, although they could easily have got two wins, suffering a five-point defeat to Italy in Leeds and being victims of the biggest-ever comeback in the tournament’s history, losing 17-15 to Romania in Leicester.

Canada were close to upsetting Scotland the year before and generally, the feeling was that the team could kick on again under former All Blacks full-back Crowley if given the right backing, despite the team slipping down to 18th in the world rankings.

However, Crowley didn’t feel confident that Rugby Canada would press on with the centralised programme that he felt was key to a brighter future and accepted Treviso’s offer to coach in a full-time environment.

After a short interim period under women’s national coach Francois Ratier, Canada appointed Mark Anscombe as head coach at the end of March 2016.

The New Zealander lasted just over 16 months in the job before being sacked and replaced by Jones. Anscombe’s record was worse than Jones’ (W2, D1, L11) and over the last nine years, Canada has sunk to 23rd in the world, touching an all-time low of 24th at one point.

Whoever takes over will have a tough time convincing Ardron – the only Canadian to play Super Rugby (with the Chiefs) – to make himself available for Canada.

“I don’t see any clear path for them to go forward,” the two-time Rugby World Cup participant said.

“They have got a new CEO (Nathan Bombrys) who’s been in there – it’s got to be two to three years – but I have never had a call from them.

“But I’m not going to go begging for a game for them when I have got my life set up so well over here.

“For me, if Castres were playing against Toulouse in the Top 14 and Canada were playing Chile or Portugal, I have only so many games left in my career and it is pretty obvious which one I’m going to choose these days.”

Canada’s 32-strong squad for the November tour to Romania only contained three players playing outside of Canada or in Major League Rugby: Siôn Parry (Ebbw Vale, Wales), Peter Nelson (Dungannon, Northern Ireland) and Nic Benn (unattached, Australia).

But for Canada to have the best possible chance to qualify for the next Rugby World Cup they need their France-based full-time pros like Ardron, Evan Olmstead (Agen) and Matt Beukeboom (Soyaux-Angouleme) to be brought back into the fold.

Three tickets to Rugby World Cup 2027 will be handed out at the end of the Pacific Nations Cup in 2025. With Fiji and Japan already guaranteed their place, only the team that finishes bottom will miss out on the most direct route to Australia.

A repeat of Canada’s last-place finish in 2024 will result in them playing off against the Sudamerica 2025 runners-up – most probably Chile.

The loser of that game still has one final chance of making it to RWC 2027 via the Final Qualification Tournament, the route Canada took to qualify in 2019 when Ardron still wore a maple-leafed jersey.

As things stand, Ardron can see Canada missing out again, even though the tournament has been expanded to 24 teams.

“I am not in the system, so I don’t know what the sentiment with the guys is. I am looking from the outside in but I wouldn’t put any money on it, that’s for sure.”