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BORDEAUX - Canada team ambassador Al Charron said the extra rest his side has had ahead of their match against Japan here on Tuesday should count in their favour.
Canada have been resting and training this week while Japan were thrashed 72-18 by Wales on Thursday night.
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Charron believes that should give the North Americans the edge in the match to avoid the Pool C wooden spoon.
"They're always quite shifty, a little erratic in their play but I imagine with John Kirwan things are going to be a little more stable," he said of Japan.
"Certainly the schedule favours us in that we have nine days between our games."
Japan's New Zealand coach Kirwan, a World Cup winner in the inaugural tournament in 1987, had admitted before the Wales match that there was not enough time to recover ahead of the Canada game.
However, he is remaining positive.
"It is important we learn that lesson (from the Wales match) and take it forward to our final match, against Canada, which is our most important game in this World Cup," he said on Thursday night.
"We came here aiming to win two games and we should have won the Fiji game (a 35-31 defeat). Now it is taking what we can out of this game and getting out there and beating Canada. It will be a positive World Cup if we finish with a win."
Canada too believe it will be a positive World Cup if they finish with a victory, despite setting their sights much higher before the tournament began.
Charron said they had hoped to reach the knock-out stages.
"If we say we want to go there and just perform that's a loser's attitude. We wanted to at least get to the quarter-finals," he said.
"It was a somewhat realistic goal, obviously we were playing against three teams in our pool ranked ahead of us - Japan being the one ranked below us - so if you go by that textbook we should only come out with one (win), but its quite possible we won't have any.
"Our goal was to advance to the quarter-final, that's no longer the case now but we're trying to get the win that we're seeking against Japan.
"It's easier said than done, it will be a hard game for us, then we'll take the Australia game as it comes.
"As long as we're developping the players and the players are learning from the experience; we've picked a young squad, a lot of these guys will be around for 2011.
"I think that it is a success. Unfortunately in sports you're judged on your wins and losses and although we've performed very well, the people who are not familiar with the way we played will look at our record and say it wasn't a success."
- AFP
