LONG READ Tyler Ardron: 'Maybe I should go for another year and do one more World Cup before I retire’

Tyler Ardron wasn’t supposed to be playing rugby this late in 2026. He should have hung up his boots in June, and was expecting to be taking things easy sailing around on a catamaran before settling into a proper job a year or so down the line.

That was the plan. “Everything was set up,” Ardron said. “My partner and I were all ready to go.”

No one could blame the Canadian, 35, for thinking along break-and-reset lines. Between playing internationally for Canada, and club rugby in Wales, New Zealand and France, completing a bachelor degree and two masters, getting his sailing licence, qualifying to teach yoga, and going through the process of applying for French citizenship, he’s not left a great deal of time for R&R over the past decade and a half.

“I’m still working on the French citizenship – so if somebody from the prefecture of Marseilles or Toulouse wants to read this article and move that along a little quicker, that could be quite helpful,” he joked, before adding: “I think it’s important that I have at least a year or something where I just take a break, and reflect on the first stage of my career before going into something different.”

But that particular best-laid retirement plan hit a problem after the opening match of the 2025 Pacific Nations Cup. “I went back and I played for Canada. We beat the US, so that qualified us for the World Cup,” he said.

That’s not the whole story. Ardron scored four tries in that match, including a first-half hat-trick, to help his side to a 34-20 victory in Calgary, in his first national outing since October 2022.

“That made me think, ‘Maybe I should go for another year, so that I can do one more World Cup before I retire’.”

He now has five tries in his last two test outings, having scored in the loss to Spain earlier this year, during the inaugural World Rugby Nations Cup competition, which resumed for Canada in November with matches against Georgia, Hong Kong China and Romania on a European tour taking in Tbilisi, Chambery and Bucharest.

Ardron is a fan of the competition. “It’s definitely a good thing for Rugby Canada – it’s a pretty good format for us,” he said. “The main thing we’re missing would have to be time together, especially since the Toronto Arrows have gone.

“There’s no perfect solution [to the global rugby calendar], but I think they’ve come up with a good idea and I hope it will continue.”

“Overall it’s positive, especially having the three games in the summer. Obviously, I was able to get released. Evan Olmstead [a ProD2 rival of Ardron’s at Nissa Rugby] was able to play a couple of games. We’ve got a few guys that were available. And you’ve got other guys, when we can’t go, who are able to step in and get more experience.

“And with Stephen Meehan coming in and kind of putting in a new attacking structure, you could see it starting to come together in the summer – I thought they really improved over the three games in Japan.

“There’s no perfect solution [to the global rugby calendar], but I think they’ve come up with a good idea and I hope it will continue.”

But go back a year. That win over USA in August 2025 put Canada on the brink of Men’s Rugby World Cup 2026 qualification. You only have to watch videos from the Canada camp posted on social media when Japan beat USA a few weeks later to confirm Meehan’s side would go to Australia to understand what qualification meant.

But it also presented Ardron – who played in the 2015 and 2019 tournaments – with a professional conundrum. Suddenly, one last unexpected World Cup hurrah was possible.

He had, however, already decided the 2025/26 Top 14 campaign with Castres Olympique would be his last as a player. The club was already planning and recruiting for a post-Ardron future and – to the disappointment of the club’s fans – could not fit him back in the squad.

But he would need gametime if he was to aim for Australia 2027. “I couldn’t just take a complete break because I want to be in good form when the World Cup comes,” he said. “I thought about it for a while and talked to different coaches.”

Ardron, rightly, took his time finalising his decision. “It was just before the new year when I decided for sure I would play another year,” he went on. “I had a few ProD2 teams reach out. I had some Top 14 teams reach out – and a couple that I thought would have been good options.”

I had two offers in different countries and I was, like, ‘well, I’m going to take one of these’. Then Provence came in and I probably signed in less than 36 hours.

French professional rugby’s JIFF rules were an added constraint for clubs in the Top 14 and ProD2. Ardron, having learned his rugby trade outside France is categorised as a non-JIFF player, and clubs in the top two divisions are limited to 13 of those in their senior squads.

“It took time for [clubs] with the JIFF numbers, and I totally understand that. Every team is full with non-JIFF players at the moment and you have to balance it with positions and everything.

“A week before Provence came in, I had two offers in different countries and I was, like, ‘well, I’m going to take one of these’. Then Provence came in and I probably signed in less than 36 hours.”

The ambitious French side were in the middle of a historic run to their first-ever ProD2 final when Ardron agreed to a one-season deal to retain his rugby reflexes for the World Cup.

The all-round package the club offered sold it. Particularly during the summer months, you’ll see plenty of jokes on social media focusing on European – particularly French – lifestyles compared to elsewhere. But it matters.

“There wasn’t one thing,” Ardron explained of what made Provence’s offer stand out. “This is one of the best places in the world to live. No matter where I go and live, when rugby is over, I would love to have a base around here to come back to as well.

France is probably one of the best places I could be – I love mountain biking, road biking, motorcycles, and I have the Luberon just behind me, and all the Provence region.

“I don’t see myself ever fully leaving and never coming back. In France, this is probably one of the best places I could be – I love mountain biking, road biking, motorcycles, and I have the Luberon just behind me, and all the Provence region.

“I bought a boat as soon as I came here because I love spearfishing, I love sailing, I love being on the water and I’m 35 minutes from the boat launch. I can get to Cassis, I can get to the Côte Bleue in under an hour – it’s the ideal place to live.

“Then you add, on top of that, the rugby project. At first I didn’t want to play ProD2 – I’d never played in a second division. [But] the way they sold it and the way they talked about being right at the top, having the ambition to go up, was exciting.”

Provence were strong pre-season favourites to win promotion to the top-tier of French domestic club rugby as champions this year. They picked up 14 out of 16 votes for most likely champions in Midi Olympique’s annual pre-season poll of ProD2 managers. No wonder, with, to all intents and purposes, a Top 14 squad playing ProD2 rugby.

“I spoke to Philippe and to Denis [Philipon], the president, and it was obvious that there was just one ambition – to win the league,” Ardron said. “To do that, you’ve got to finish top.”

Yet there’s no denying that the ProD2 season – however and whenever it ends – is a prelude to the main event in Australia next October. Canada open their Pool C campaign on October 4 against Argentina at Brisbane Stadium, ahead of pool phase matches against Fiji and Spain.

A year, give or take, before the tournament kicks off is too early for World Cup goals to be discussed in anything other than vague abstracts, and Ardron was understandably unwilling to second-guess what might be. But he said: “Llooking at the world rankings and where we are relative to the other teams, Spain is going to be the one we’re going to target the most. And then Fiji, Argentina are going to be two really tough games.”

The veteran of Rugby World Cups in 2015 and 2019, who made his senior international debut in 2012, has witnessed many changes in the game, and in Canada’s standings. And he’s impressed by the impact of coach Meehan – whose first competitive match in charge was also Ardron’s grand return to the international front.

“We’re more expansive,” he said of Meehan’s rugby style. “He wants to play a more attacking game.”

But the style Meehan is introducing is a process rather than an imposition. “He came in and didn’t change much in the beginning,” Ardron explained. “I speak to him quite often, although I don’t play as often as I would like, [but] he got to know the players before he decided how we were going to play.

When I went back in the summer, he’d started [Steve Meehan] to put together a plan that plays to our strengths.”

“He didn’t necessarily bring in ‘his system’. That’s something he’s done really well. When I went back in the summer, he’d started to put together a plan that plays to our strengths.”

This is a return to old-school coaching principles for Ardron. “It’s a style of coaching that you see very often. Most coaches have something they’re comfortable with and they live by the sword, die by the sword. They bring their style in, and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.

“He’s gone the opposite way. I haven’t seen that since the Kieran Crowley / Neil Barnes era of Rugby Canada.”

That was more than a decade ago. A lot of international rugby has been played since then. The passage of time brings back the subject of retirement. “I feel that it probably is my last season of club rugby,” Ardron said. But, there followed a caveat. “That said, my partner and I, we love living here [in Provence].

“The only way that I would play another year is if I really feel that I can offer something to help the team when they go up to Top 14 to stay up there. And if they’re equally as interested on their end.

“But I don’t know. I wouldn’t say that decision would be made before the new year on either end.”

This, then, looks a lot like Ardron’s long goodbye to rugby. But what about after he’s finished playing? A whole new challenge for a man who lives and breathes them. “I really want to start from the bottom again, I want to go into a new business and have to work my way back up and try to find new success.”

Not rugby? “Rugby is such an important part to me. I’ve already helped some kids get into some academies here in France – I’ll always be willing to do that, but at least for a few years.

“But I don’t want my life to be dictated by rugby. I’d love to have some weekends where I can just relax.”

That’s when a catamaran may be involved.