Kleeberger hails the rising Canucks

Canada, who came into the RWC 2011 ranked 14th in the world, are a team on the move.
With a strong showing in Pool A as well as some other results falling their way, they have risen to 11th place in the International Rugby Board rankings.

“Since I’ve been playing, that’s the highest we’ve been and a great accomplishment for us,” said flanker Adam Kleeberger.

The Canucks' previous highest ranking was eighth following the 1991 World Cup, in which they reached the quarter-finals before losing to New Zealand.

With the team's rankings having hovered around the 13-15 range since Kieran Crowley took over as coach in 2008, Kleeberger is quick to attribute an all-round improvement in their game to the influence of their Kiwi leader.

“I think he deserves a lot of the credit." Kleeberger said. "He’s given us the ball and said, ‘you guys are capable of doing these things that the other teams are doing,’ and he’s given us the confidence to achieve a lot of the things we’ve been doing lately.

Glued to the television

“But you’re only as good as your last game and we still have another one coming up. So the focus is that one and, if we don’t play well in that one, we could be dropping down again pretty quickly.”

With the focus now on Japan, the Canadians will be glued to the television for the Pool A clash between the Brave Blossoms and Tonga in Whangarei on Wednesday night.

“Hopefully, it’ll give us some ideas for what we’re going to do when we play Japan,” said Kleeberger, who was voted man of the match in Canada's 25-20 victory over Tonga.

“I know Tonga were really upset after the game we played against them. That’s understandable and I would expect them to be coming out all guns blazing.

“This is a huge match for Japan as well, so I’m expecting a really hard-fought game.”

While their next opponents were preparing to slog it out with Tonga, some of the Canadian players made goodwill visits to local schools in Hastings and Napier, no doubt extending further their healthy support base in the area.

Spreading the word

“I’ll hopefully get a chance to head out soon. I’m not going today as we all take turns but I’ll get my opportunity soon enough," said Kleeberger.

“We do (community visits) a lot in places like New Zealand that we visit but I think it’d be great if we could do it a little more at home.

“I don’t think we have that side of things with our group at home, in terms of visiting the schools and spreading the word about rugby. I think we can learn from what we’ve been doing over here in the last couple of weeks and start doing it more when we get home.”

The Canadians returned to training at Napier's Tremain Field on Wednesday after a couple of recovery sessions following their 46-19 defeat by France.

“Twenty-nine out of the 30 trained today, so that was positive,” said Crowley.

“DTH van der Merwe is the one who didn’t train. He’s got a bit of a shoulder injury which will probably be right in about three or four days, so the medical team have done an outstanding job with recovery."