The Canadians are three-quarters of the way through an ambitious month-long tour that started brightly enough with a 21-13 win over Portugal before enjoying both lows and highs. They were walloped 55-0 in Limerick before going down fighting at the Millennium Stadium on Friday night by 34-13 after leading Wales right up to the 39th minute of the match.

It was some achievement since just about the only member of the Maple Leafs who is playing first division rugby is the Glasgow Warriors' prop forward Kevin Tkachuk, and then only rarely. Almost half the squad play their rugby in Canada and a flanker named Jebb Sinclair won his first start against Wales when two short years ago he was playing Premier Two rugby in Scotland for Stewart's Melville FP. A quick glance at the Canadian players' clubs gives some indication of the task in hand; Plymouth Albion, Cornish Pirates, Stade Bordelais, Bedford and Colorno.

The last is a small club who play in Italy's Serie A1, effectively the second division, which is home to former Glenalmond, Heriot's and Edinburgh fly-half Ander Monro. The Scot was born in Toronto and, despite being the grandson of the late Sir Hector Monro, a past president of the SRU, he opted for the land of his birth once it became clear that he wouldn't get a look in with the Scotland selectors.

After playing with an authority that is rarely shown by a Scottish fly-half at the Millennium Stadium on Friday, Monro flew back to Italy the next morning which means he won't be lining up against his fellow countrymen next Saturday.

"It's a real shame," said Monro before leaving, "because my family live just one-and-a-half hours north of Aberdeen and they were looking forward to watching me. I was disappointed on a personal level because obviously I know most of the players I'd be playing against – well, I'd know them all."

"I was supposed to play in the first two games and then go back to my club which has a big match against L'Aquila coming up but I don't think that the club realised that these matches fall inside the IRB's international window. Anyway, I try not to get too involved and I just let them sort it out between themselves."

According to the IRB website, Canada has roughly the same number of adult male rugby players as Scotland does, the problem is that they are spread out over a vast country that stretches to almost four million square miles. That is just one of the many problems that beset Canadian rugby. The team gets together twice a year and the personnel change quicker than a variety show. The squad is put together from at least six disparate countries with professionals mixed in with amateurs in a way that only Argentina might consider normal. Asking such a mongrel team to play three home unions in three weeks is a tall order, as Monro readily agrees.

"It's a very tough ask, especially given the quality of the teams we are up against and the fact that they are all full-time professionals. The Canada side is a real mish-mash of different players from different leagues and there are about 15 amateurs in the squad who play their rugby in Canada.

"Everyone's team plays a different style of rugby and when we first get together it takes time for all the players to switch into how Canada wants to play the game. When people get tired in games they generally revert to doing what they know best just out of habit. It's a challenge."

Monro accepts that his adopted squad no longer boasts the sort of superstars that it once did but he insists that there is talent there if only it can be unearthed. Canadian team coach Kieran Crowley repeatedly criss-crosses the land from Pacific to Atlantic oceans and unearths hidden gems in far flung corners of the country. The trouble is that their clubs do not wholeheartedly support the centralising policy of the union.

Canada's best young players are offered bursaries ranging from £350-£750 per month and they are based at an academy in Victoria, BC, a stronghold of Canadian rugby. Naturally enough there are some eastern teams who would rather not lose their best to the west.

"The clubs don't want to lose their players and the whole country is not unified," claims Monro. "We are not all pulling in the same direction. British Columbia is still a very different place to the east coast."

The Holy Grail for most promising Canadian rugby players is a European passport because that way they may get the chance of playing professional rugby which simply isn't available at home.

Monro picks Adam Kleeberger as the standout player in the current squad and he is currently applying for German citizenship, hoping a European club contract will follow. Like Al Charron, the youngster is an athletic flanker – he doesn't tackle quite as hard as the Canuks' erstwhile hero but then very few do.