Canada men's rugby coach Steve Meehan sees talent and opportunity in the roster he'll be officially working with for the first time on Saturday. Canada faces Belgium on Saturday in a test match in Edmonton.HO/The Canadian Press
Almost seven months since he was appointed head coach of the Canadian men’s national rugby team, Steve Meehan is set to take charge of his first game this Saturday in Edmonton.
While it may have been a long time coming for the veteran Australian coach, for the Canadian men’s rugby community – which has seen its patience put through the wringer tested in recent years – the contest couldn’t come soon enough. The matchup with Belgium, the world’s 23rd-ranked men’s team, represents a fresh start for a men’s team that has fallen on hard times, dropping to 24th in the world rankings, equalling its lowest-ever position.
That’s on top of missing out on the 2023 Rugby World Cup, the first time the men’s team failed to qualify for the sport’s showpiece event.
None of those circumstances were sufficiently off-putting to deter the 59-year-old Queensland native from officially starting the job back in April. In fact, the man who led Bath Rugby to the 2008 European Challenge Cup saw some green shoots of success from across the ocean.
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“There were performances last year,” Meehan says. “And those performances are one of the reasons why I’m here, because I thought the side, just looking and watching the games, and looking at various bits and pieces, you think, ‘Yeah, there’s some opportunity for sure. Absolute opportunity.’”
The 2025 rugby calendar certainly presents a lot of opportunity for Canadian rugby, although much of that is rightfully centred around the women’s side, which heads into August’s Rugby World Cup in England as the world’s second-ranked team. But the men’s squad also faces a defining period of its own, with test matches against Belgium this weekend and No. 16 Spain next Friday allowing Meehan to see what sort of talent he has at his disposal.
That pair of matches will help him ready his players for August’s Pacific Nations Cup, which also serves as a qualifier for the 2027 men’s World Cup, to be held in Australia. If Canada fails to make it at the PNC, the team will have a further two opportunities to qualify.
With that kind of carrot on offer, Meehan adds that motivating this team will be one of his easier jobs ahead of his Canadian coaching debut.
“I think everybody’s well aware of that, just how important that is,” he says. “You always need that big enough reason why, and I think that to get Canada back into the World Cup is a really strong driving force, real motivating, certainly for me, and for those that I’ve spoken to up until this point.”
Meehan appears willing to fly in the face of the gameplans that many of his players may see with their club teams. Twenty-one of his 33 players currently play in Major League Rugby.HO/The Canadian Press
Despite being someone who told the Guardian 16 years ago that coaching at the international level was “far too stressful” for his liking, Meehan is eager to impose his brand of rugby on the Canadian players. Unsurprisingly for someone who served as an assistant under now-France coach Fabien Galthie at Stade Francais, that is based heavily on keeping the ball in hand and running it.
That philosophy may be a little ideologically opposed to the gameplan many of his current charges are asked to carry out week-to-week with their club teams, particularly with 21 of his 33-man roster coming from Major League Rugby.
“It sort of feels some days that the box kick seems to be the No. 1 choice of everybody,” Meehan says of watching MLR. “And you think, ‘Well, maybe there’s another way.’
“But there’s certainly been some good performances, and some teams have been really consistent.”
Two of those consistent teams contain more than their fair share of Canadians. The New England Free Jacks and Chicago Hounds – who met in the Eastern Conference final last month, with New England winning by a point on its way to a third straight MLR Shield – are home to 13 of Canada’s current squad. And Saturday’s game will feature eight players from the two teams in the starting 15.
Meehan is also handing a first international 15s cap to full-back Brenden Black, who has previously played for the sevens team, while Cooper Coats, who has 17 caps mostly at full-back, will make his first start as fly half.
But while Coats, who plays for NOLA Gold in MLR, will be one of the team’s main offensive facilitators, or “a conduit,” as Meehan calls his No. 10, he also needs to be one of the principal players in setting the line speed defensively.
While many compare fly halves to the quarterback in football, Meehan doesn’t necessarily want all of his offence to flow through the No. 10, adding that he spends a lot of time empowering all his players to make decisions on the pitch.
By way of example, he references former Argentina fly half Agustin Pichot, an international rugby hall of famer who he coached during his time with Stade Francais.
Canada's Lucas Rumball (7) scores a try during the second half of men's 15s international rugby action against Spain in Ottawa in 2022. Rumball will be in Edmonton on Saturday playing for coach Steve Meehan as he makes his debut on Canada's sideline.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
“He said to me, ‘My job is to break the pattern,’” Meehan says. “And he wasn’t saying that in a selfish way. He was just saying that when I recognize an opportunity I’ve got to take it. And I would encourage every player to look for opportunities.”
Of course, imbuing his players with that mindset is easier said than done in international rugby, given the limited windows of opportunities that coaches like Meehan have with their players. Saturday’s game will be Canada’s first since a pair of losses to Romania and Chile last November under former head coach Kingsley Jones.
But through his coaching journey, from France to England, and back to Australia with Western Force and the Queensland Reds in Super Rugby – and even to schools rugby when he worked at Brisbane Boys’ College six years ago – Meehan has had to adapt his teaching style along the way.
Now immersed in international rugby, he says he will still spend time on individual skill work, but adds that focus needs to be on where you get the “biggest bang for your buck,” as time must be spent differently than in club rugby.
And taking a page out of Rugby Canada’s One Squad philosophy – the governing body’s strategic plan to harness men and women, 15s and sevens players, and get everyone pulling in the same direction – Meehan is more than happy to lean into the women’s program’s ongoing expertise.
“It’s time for the men’s program to sort of come together in the same way as the women’s do, actually, in many respects,” he says. “Share resources, share knowledge, understand what’s going on, try and improve each other, and work together.”
For Meehan and his men, that work begins Saturday in Edmonton.