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With venue for Rugby World Cup final qualifier confirmed, Canada adds build-up matches

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Canada will play three games in Marseille in November, World Rugby has confirmed.

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The French city’s 5,000-seat Stade Delort has been selected as host venue for the three-week, four-team Rugby World Cup repechage tournament.

The winner of the tournament will take the final spot for the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan.

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Canada and Hong Kong are the two confirmed teams so far; the third team, likely Germany, will be confirmed this weekend. The Germans host Samoa in the second leg of their RWC qualifying series. The Samoans took a huge 66-15 win 10 days ago in the first leg and few expect the Germans will be able to reverse the deficit they’re facing.

The fourth team will be the second-place team in the Rugby Africa Gold Cup, which is likely to be Kenya.

The round-robin tournament will be played over three match days: Nov. 11, Nov. 17 and Nov. 23.

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To prepare for those vital three games, the Canadians have set themselves a four-month schedule to prepare.

The couple-dozen domestic players who make up the centralized program have assembled in Langford on Vancouver Island this week and won’t really break up again until the end of the year.

The centralized players will be involved in the Canadian Rugby Championship, which kicks off July 27 in Calgary with the B.C. Bears visiting the Prairie Wolf Pack. Those two teams then play a return match a week later in Vancouver. The Ontario Blues and Atlantic Rock will face off that weekend, then will play again on Aug. 7.

Some of the Canadian centralized players will miss that Aug. 7 game, since Kingsley Jones is taking a Canada A squad on a tour of France. The Canadians will face defending Top 14 champions Castres on Aug. 11 and longtime French powerhouse Clermont on Aug. 17. Both Top 14 squads will be fine-tuning their squads as their preseason will be nearing an end.

Following the French tour, the centralized players could then be involved in CRC action again as the semifinals and finals go in Calgary on Aug. 23 and 26.

Jones’s squad then will get a month off from game action, just pure training in September, as they prep for the three-match Americas Pacific Challenge in Uruguay in October.

Again branded Canada A, the Canadians will play a trio of games on Oct. 6, 10 and 14.

And then there will be less than a month until the big show.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

twitter.com/risingaction

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