A vow made nearly a decade ago came to fruition earlier this month when Paul Kay and Robin MacDowell met up at the Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament to watch Paul’s son, Pat, in action with the Canadian national team.
“Paul and I made a pact to one day watch him together in Hong Kong, eight years ago, when we were at the Cowichan Rugby Club after one of his games,” MacDowell recalled shortly after the tournament that ran April 6-8. “Came true this weekend. Small towns, big dreams.”
Both MacDowell and Pat Kay grew up in the Cowichan Valley and went on to play for the national sevens team. MacDowell now runs a rugby academy in Saskatchewan and coaches several international teams, including the Mexican women’s side, while Kay is into his fourth year as a regular with the sevens team.
Pat Kay scored four over six matches as Canada finished 10th overall.
“He is our best player right now,” MacDowell stated.
In pool play, Canada had one win and two losses, beating Spain 17-12 and losing to Australia 34-14 and Kenya 33-10. Kay scored twice against Spain and once against Kenya.
Canada went on to the Challenge Trophy bracket, beating South Korea 45-0 in the quarter-finals and Russia 19-12 in the semis, then losing the final 33-7 to France. Kay scored one try against Russia.
The Canadian sevens team went on to play in the Commonwealth Games this past weekend, and will attempt to defend their title at the Singapore Sevens on April 28 and 29.
MacDowell’s Mexican women’s sevens team was also in action at Hong Kong, going winless in a stacked pool that included South Africa, Kenya and Papua New Guinea. Their tournament ended there, as there were no day-two matches for the bottom four teams.
“We played well,” MacDowell said. “We had the pool of death.”
The Mexican team, also known as Las Serpientes, improved in several measurable ways that MacDowell had been working on leading up to the tournament.
“It’s a great baseline as we build towards the World Cup,” MacDowell said. “Ten new caps at that level.
“We controlled the game for long periods and had one of the highest pass completion [rates] out of any team, which are measurables I was looking for to build on. Realistically, I go into every tournament to win, but we had a young team jumping into the show for the first time.”
Mexico had already qualified for the Rugby World Cup Sevens in July, which will be followed by the Central American Games a week after that, then Pan Am Games qualifiers in September. They also have the Olympic qualifiers next year, for which Mexico is a top seed.
