The 29-year-old Marshall has signed a four-month contract for Hawke’s Bay in New Zealand’s provincial championship, which starts on Aug. 14, and is one of the few Canadian internationals playing professional rugby around the world.
“That’s the one thing about Canada, we don’t often get the opportunity to play professional rugby,” Marshall told Reuters via telephone from Napier. “I hope rugby is on the rise in Canada. It seems like it is.
“If we can show everybody that we’re pretty decent rugby players then that may be the opportunity for other Canadians to showcase their skills.”
The ‘we’, includes fellow front rower Hubert Buydens, who has joined neighbouring province Manawatu. Injuries and selection issues notwithstanding, the pair are scheduled to meet in a clash between the traditional rivals on Oct. 5.
“We play each other and will be butting heads, which could be quite interesting,” he added. “It’s up to us to show a positive foot for younger Canadians and hopefully our form will speak for itself and create more interest.”
The Simon Fraser University accounting graduate’s path to the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island has been littered with having to make, and take, calculated risks.
None more so than his move to Hawke’s Bay after he walked away from a lucrative contract in France for the 2014-15 season.
There were no guarantees of playing. No long-term promises. Just the opportunity to press his claims when he stepped off the plane at Napier airport.
“I’m definitely taking a risk in that it’s just a four-month contract and anything can happen in terms of injuries or just not playing well,” he said.
“I’m putting one foot forward and hoping to train well and play well and then see what happens after that.”
AMERICAN FOOTBALL
Prior to his move into professional rugby, Marshall had ambitions as an American football quarterback where he started for three seasons at SFU and was forced to abandon rugby – a sport he had played at high school.
After university, he was invited to a tryout with the Canadian Football League’s Edmonton Eskimos but that ended as abruptly as it began.
He returned to rugby – ‘as a hobby’ – and was waiting for an accountancy job to start when his athleticism and ball handling skills drew the attention of Rugby Canada, who asked him to commit to the sport full time.
He made his international debut as a replacement flanker in Canada’s 41-0 loss to Scotland in 2008 but was then immediately forced to take another calculated risk.
“The coach came to me and said that I was lacking the basic skills I would’ve gained if I’d been playing rugby for a long time but they felt that if I make the transition to prop there was more of a future for me with Canada,” he said.
“So I decided to make the transition to tighthead prop.”
While he felt the metamorphosis to rugby loose forward from a physical, running quarterback was not that difficult, moving from flanker to prop, was a different story.
“My scrummaging was quite poor at the start of my propping career… and there was a long time where I was dreading every scrum in a game,” he added.
“But the Canadian coaches liked how much I got around the field and the way I got involved. So they slowly let the propping and scrummaging develop over time.”
After an 18-month ‘re-education’ he earned his second cap in June 2010 against Uruguay and has cemented himself since as the first choice tighthead for Canada.
He started all four of the team’s 2011 World Cup games, where All Blacks prop Tony Woodcock gave him the best scrummaging lesson he ever could receive.
“He taught me a lot… that’s for sure,” he added with a chuckle. “The lessons weren’t all positive. They were pretty negative.
“Though he didn’t say one word to me. The stare and his performance said it all.”
WORLD CUP
Marshall’s eyes are unlikely to meet Woodcock’s again unless Canada cause major upsets at next year’s World Cup in England where they have been drawn in Pool D with France, Ireland, Italy and Romania.
Canada’s ‘realistic’ ambitions, he said, are of at least two victories and a third-place finish in the pool, which automatically qualify them for the 2019 World Cup in Japan.
It could be a tough ask. The Canadians have won seven of their 25 World Cup matches in seven tournament appearances.
Their best finish was in 1991 when they lost 29-13 to New Zealand in the quarter-finals.
Professionalism, however, has exacerbated the gap between the top tier and other nations – their only victories at the World Cup since 1999 have been against Tonga (twice) and Namibia while they have also drawn twice with Japan.
Marshall, however, holds out hope his stint in Hawke’s Bay could help secure another professional contract – possibly in Super Rugby – but also get administrators to look at strengthening the North American game.
“Ideally it would be great to have more Canadians playing professional rugby,” he said.
“We can help ourselves out. Maybe we could establish a North American league with the Americans.
“If there was something local then I think that would help a lot.”
- Sports Recreation
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- New Zealand
Article source: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/jul/31/women-rugby-world-cup-2014-maggie-alphonsi-england
Rugby - Risk-taking Marshall set for New Zealand gamble
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