Crowley sends out Canada's best again

Canada coach Kieran Crowley has stuck to his World Cup policy of naming his best team for every match by making only one enforced change for their final Pool A clash against New Zealand.

Despite the short turnaround after their 23-23 draw with Japan on Tuesday, Kirwan's only change for Sunday is to replace James Pitchard with Conor Trainor.

"It is a World Cup after all, so we took the attitude that we were going to field our best team in every game. So we've done that," Crowley said.

With goal kicking full back Pitchard excluded because of a bang to the head he received against Japan, Trainor comes off the bench to play wing and Matt Evans will wear number 15.

The new replacement is an additional reserve forward, flanker Nanyak Dala.

Crowley said a number of players were still recovering from the Japan match, but he expected all to be ready to take the field at Wellington Regional Stadium.

Making progress

If no further changes are made, Canada will have at least five players in their squad of 30 who did not play at RWC 2011, but Crowley said everyone had made a contribution to Canada's "massive improvement" at this World Cup.

"Our performances against Tonga (won 25-20) and France (lost 46-19) were pretty damned good (although against) France we gave away 23 points in the last five minutes, of both halves.

"Was that fatigue? You don't know, but I was really pleased with those two (matches)."

"But I'd rather be sitting here with three wins today, because that's the way we approach it."

The former All Black and 1987 RWC winner conceded Canada have a major job ahead of them but said they would be rating their performance against their own benchmarks rather than the final scoreline.

Team goals

"People ask me 'are you going to attack any weaknesses?' Well you don't have weaknesses if you're the All Blacks or South Africa.

"You've just got to look at your own game and try to get that in order and attack certain areas where you might think there might be a bit of a creak in their structure.

"We've got some goals within our team and we believe if we can hit three out of four of those we are right in the ball game.

"And when we sit down and review the game afterwards that's how we'll measure our performance."

And what would be a respectable scoreline?

"I'll be happy with 21-20 to us and we've scored three converted tries."