KEY POINTS:
Canada prop Scott Franklin admitted that his parents back home in Alberta would really have no idea what he got up to this weekend.
It's probably just as well.
They didn't need to know he was playing the most feared team in rugby; that he was playing in
the front row, the darkest corner of the game; and that his 12 months in the position marked him down as potential cannon fodder, even for a debutant like John Schwalger.
It was probably best, too, that Franklin conceded he knew nothing about his scrumming foe; that Schwalger has been marked down by the All Blacks selectors as a man of immense strength and talent.
"I knew a lot about [Tony] Woodcock and [Carl] Hayman, but I don't know anything about the loosehead I'll be facing," the 27-year-old said ahead of last night's match.
"I've only been playing in the front row for a year so it's been a steep learning curve," he said with no hint of understatement.
"I was introduced to rugby at Notre Dame [High School in Saskatchewan]. I went there for hockey initially but got into football and eventually I got into the rugby programme there and that brought me out to the west coast of Canada and that's where I started playing competitive rugby."
Rugby might be his game now but before that it was American Football and, inevitably, ice hockey (though you drop the 'ice' in Canada).
"Absolutely. I grew up in southern Alberta and it was all hockey."
To those who don't understand the grip hockey has over the massive province that reaches up to the 60 parallel before giving way to the barely inhabited Northwest Territories, Alberta in the 1980s was 'Wayne Gretsky Country' and the Edmonton Oilers were king.
Gretsky, Mark Messier and Paul Coffey formed a sporting triumvirate as powerful as any in sporting history.
"You had to cheer for the Oilers, it was just common sense," Franklin recalled.
Franklin was a forward, playing on the wing, an image incongruous with his status as a tighthead prop. He was a room-mate of star NHL players Vincent Lecavalier and Brad Richards who play now for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
So when Franklin was a kid considering his sporting future he would have felt he was more likely to make it to Hamilton, Ontario, than Hamilton, New Zealand.
But rugby offered Franklin, who we can only presume is listed facetiously as 6cms tall and 250kgs on his personal profile on Canada Rugby's website, the opportunity to represent his country in a sport where the Canucks have threatened to dine at the top table without ever being able to leave the high chair.
He started as a flanker or No 8, but moved into the front row after he headed west "to pursue my rugby career".
He plays for the Castaway Wanderers on Victoria Island in the BC Premier League, the country's top competition.
It's strictly amateur fare though. Franklin has taken six weeks off his job to come to New Zealand, and will be taking a whole lot more if he makes the squad for France.
It's a reminder of a bygone era where rugby came at a cost, not to the employers of rugby players, but the employees.
"I graduated from business college last summer but have only been working part time as I put everything on hold to pursue my rugby career."
He envies the environment here. He might not have known much about Schwalger before last night's match, but he knew the inherent advantage he had being brought up in the New Zealand system.
"Compared to our country here you've got young players and it's all they do. They train, do their programmes, travel and play rugby, and they get paid well for it.
"In Canada it's different. You have to work. Right now I've taken six weeks off and it's not the best situation for me financially.
"You have to juggle back and forth and work out which tours you can afford to go on, asking yourself whether you're going to be financially secure.
"It's a bit of a toss up because I've got to be able to support myself while I'm doing this travelling."
But there's a beacon that keeps drawing him to the sport - Coupe du Monde.
"It's always been my goal to play for my national team at the World Cup. If I go there, hopefully I might be able to secure a pro contract.
"Hopefully it'll all work out."
