Canada blanked by Georgia in rugby international

Aaron Carpenter had to take a moment and think about the last time he played rugby in such nasty conditions.

Carpenter played the second half of the Canadian men's rugby team's 13-0 loss to Georgia on Saturday afternoon in extreme wind and rain at Calgary Rugby Park.

"I'm sure there has been a few like this, but that was a mixture of the cold and the rain," said Carpenter, who tied Al Charron's all-time cap record of 76 test appearances for Canada. "It's very difficult when it's like that. It gets in your bones and it makes you very cold, very quick, but I've been over in England and played a lot of rugby in that similar scenario."

Canadian coach Mark Anscombe praised Carpenter for his milestone moment.

"You saw the difference he made when he got on the park after halftime," said Anscombe. "He's a real warrior. He's still got plenty left in those legs."

Carpenter could surpass Charron's record if he plays in Canada's test match against Romania next Saturday in Edmonton at Ellerslie Rugby Park.

"If I'm selected that'll be a good one and hopefully we come away with a win from that one," said the 34-year-old veteran, who missed out on a chance to equal Charron's last year when he broke his arm in a game against Ireland. "It's a big thing for me personally. That's why I came back and wanted to see it through."

Charron was on hand to take in the game and congratulated Carpenter for equalling his accomplishment.

"I had it for a long time," said Charron. "I didn't really expect it to last this long. Congratulations to Aaron. He's a real committed and patriotic Canadian. Very well deserved."

Kvirkashvili does all the scoring

Merab Kvirkashvili accounted for all of the scoring for the 12th-ranked Georgian squad as he converted a pair of penalty kicks before scoring the game's only try late in the second half and adding a convert.

"Since we arrived, we sort of looked at the conditions and knew it wasn't going to be a pretty game," said Georgian coach Milton Haig. "It was going to be a bit of a ding-dong battle up front.

"It was going to be about who made the least mistakes in your own half."

Fans brave the cold

Haig was surprised to see that thousands of fans braved the inclement conditions, including a section of Georgian fans who were waving flags and cheering loudly all afternoon.

"It's great that they turned out, but crazy that they stayed out there," said Haig. "It's just madness. It was really, really cold — one of the coldest conditions I've experienced in a very long time. Congratulations to everybody who decided to stick it out, because that's gutsy."

Anscombe agreed with his Georgian counterpart.

"It's commendable," said Anscombe. "In really miserable conditions, you wonder why people would leave their homes, but they turned out and gave the guys good support. It was not easy, I'd imagine, sitting there in the crowd watching that in those conditions."

Anscombe commends young squad

Anscombe also commended the play of his 23rd-ranked squad, despite the fact that several players — including co-captain DTH van der Merwe — were missing from the lineup.

"Against a quality team like Georgia to get as close as we did with a young team is very encouraging," he said. "I'm really proud of the way the boys played today."

After facing No. 16 Romania in Edmonton next Saturday, Canada will host the 17th-ranked U.S. Eagles in Hamilton on June 24 in the opening leg of its World Cup qualifying series. The return leg is set for July 1 in San Diego.

"I think we can learn from our mistakes and we can take those learnings into the next three games," said co-captain Brett Beukeboom.

While Carpenter added his name to the record books, Shane O'Leary, Andrew Coe and Anthony Luca all had their test debuts for Canada against Georgia.