Wales 68-12 Canada
by David Nicholson
at the Millennium Stadium

WALES started their summer campaign on Saturday with an emphatic win in front of a live crowd for the first time in 15 months.

The scoreboard ticked over at a point a minute in a rollicking game that Wales won easily, but the home side lost full-back Leigh Halfpenny to a sickening knee injury within seconds of the start.

More than 6,000 noisy fans saw Halfpenny run out to celebrate his 100th international cap — his 96th for Wales, having also played in four British and Irish Lions Tests — but the stadium was silenced as he collapsed in agony.

He had launched a Welsh counter-attack before his knee appeared to give way before he was tackled. The Scarlets player left the pitch on a stretcher and will now undergo a scan to gauge the extent of the injury.

This was Canada’s first outing since the 2019 World Cup and they were competitive for the first 20 minutes, but it became clear they were way off the pace against a tier-one team.

The Canucks took the lead within five minutes with a try for winger Kaiona Lloyd after a quickly taken penalty.

But the home side soon struck back as scrum-half Tomos Williams also tapped-and-ran a penalty and went over the line to bring the score level.

Canada head coach Kingsley Jones is well known in Wales as a former international player.

With disarming honesty, he explained that his side are on a steep learning curve and will have to build their fitness.

“The way we started was excellent but our legs fell off after 20 minutes when we hit the wall,” he said.

“The biggest gain for us was being exposed to this level of rugby and we are looking forward to playing England next weekend.”

After a relaxed outing for his inexperienced squad, Pivac was realistic about the challenge his side will face over the next two weeks with two games against Argentina.

“Our young players going up against Argentina will be a good test and we will be tested across the board by a side that has recently beaten the All Blacks,” he said.