Tyler Ardron wasn’t supposed to be playing rugby this late in 2026. He was due to hang up his boots in June and expected to take it easy on catamaran sailing before settling down to a real job for a year or so.
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That was the plan. “Everything is set,” Ardron said. “My partner and I were ready to go.”
No one could blame the Canadian (35) for thinking along the lines of break-and-reset. Between playing internationally for Canada and playing club rugby in Wales, New Zealand and France, having completed a bachelor’s degree and two master’s degrees, obtained his sailing license, qualified to teach yoga and gone through the process of applying for French citizenship, he hasn’t had much time for R&R in the past decade and a half.
“I’m still working on my French citizenship – so if someone from the Marseilles prefecture or Toulouse wants to read this article and get it going a little faster, that could be a big help,” he joked, before adding: “I think it’s important to have at least a year or so where I just take a break and think about the first phase of my career before I go into something different.”
But that particularly well-laid retirement plan hit a snag after the opening game of the 2025 Pacific Nations Cup. “I came back and played for Canada. We beat the USA, so we qualified for the World Cup,” he said.
That’s not the whole story. Ardron scored four tries in that match, including a hat-trick in the first half, to help his side to a 34-20 victory in Calgary in their first national outing since October 2022.
“It made me think, ‘Maybe I should go for another year, so I can do one more World Cup before I retire’.”
He now has five tries in his last two test outings, after scoring in the defeat to Spain earlier this year, during the inauguration Nations Rugby World Cup competition, which continued for Canada in November with matches against Georgia, Hong Kong China and Romania on a European tour in Tbilisi, Chamberi and Bucharest.
Ardron is a fan of the competition. “It’s definitely a good thing for Rugby Canada – it’s a pretty good format for us,” he said. “The main thing we’re missing would have to be time together, especially since Toronto Arrows have gone.
“There is no perfect solution (for the global rugby calendar) but I think they have come up with a good idea and I hope it continues.”
“Overall it’s a positive, especially when I had three games in the summer. Obviously, I managed to get released. Evan Olmstead (Ardron’s ProD2 rivals at Nissa Rugby) was able to play a few games. We’ve got a few guys who have been available. And you’ve got other guys, when we can’t get in, who are able to get in.
“And with Stephen Meehan coming in and kind of setting up a new attacking structure, you could see it starting to come together in the summer – I thought they really improved over the three games in Japan.
“There is no perfect solution (for the global rugby calendar) but I think they have come up with a good idea and I hope it continues.”
But go back a year. That victory USA in August 2025, he brought Canada to the brink of a man Rugby World Cup 2026 qualifications. Just look at the videos from the camp in Canada posted on social networks when Japan beat USA a few weeks later to confirm that Meehan’s side would go Australia to understand what the qualification means.
But it also presented Ardron – who played in the 2015 and 2019 tournaments – a professional conundrum. Suddenly, another unexpected World Cup hurray was possible.
However, he has already decided on 2025/26 Top 14 campaign with Castres Olympique would be his last as a player. The club had already planned and recruited for the future after Ardron and – to the disappointment of the club’s supporters – were unable to bring him back into the squad.
But he would need game time if he is to fight for Australia in 2027. “I couldn’t just take a complete break because I want to be in good shape when the World Cup comes around,” he said. “I thought about it for a while and talked to different coaches.”
Ardron, rightly, took his time to finalize his decision. “It was before the new year that I decided for sure I was going to play another year,” he continued. “I had a few ProD2 teams approach me. I had a few top 14 teams – and a few that I thought would be good options.”
I had two offers in different countries and I said, ‘well, I’ll take one of these’. Then Provence came along and I probably signed in less than 36 hours.
The JIFF rules of French professional rugby were an additional restriction for clubs in the Top 14 and ProD2. Ardron, having learned rugby outside France is categorized as a non-JIFF player and clubs in the top two divisions are limited to 13 of those in their senior teams.
“It took time for (clubs) with JIFF numbers, and I totally understand that. Every team is full of non-JIFF players at the moment and you have to balance it with the positions and everything.
“A week before Provence came in, I had two offers in different countries and I was like, ‘well, I’ll take one of these’. Then Provence came in and I probably signed in less than 36 hours.”
The ambitious French side were in the midst of a historic run to their first ProD2 final when Ardron agreed a one-season deal to retain his rugby reflexes for the World Cup.
The all-round package the club offered sold him. Especially during the summer months, you’ll see a lot of jokes on social media that focus on the European – especially French – lifestyle compared to other places. But it is important.
“There wasn’t one thing,” Ardron explained, that set Provence’s bid apart. “This is one of the best places in the world to live. No matter where I go and live, when the rugby is over, I’d like to have a base to come back to.
France is probably one of the best places I could be – I love mountain biking, road biking, motorcycles, and I have the Luberon and the whole Provence region behind me.
“I don’t see myself leaving completely and never coming back. In France, this is probably one of the best places I could be – I love mountain biking, road biking, motorcycles, and I have the Luberon and the whole Provence region behind me.
“I bought a boat as soon as I got here because I love spearfishing, I love sailing, I love being on the water and I’m 35 minutes from the boat launch. I can get to Cassis, I can get to Côte Bleue in less than an hour – it’s an ideal place to live.
“Then you add, on top of that, the rugby project. At first I didn’t want to play ProD2 – I’d never played in another league. (But) the way they sold it and the way they talked about being at the top, having the ambition to go up, was exciting.”
Provence were heavy pre-season favorites for promotion to the top tier of French domestic club rugby as champions this year. They picked up 14 out of 16 votes for the most likely champions in Midi Olympique’s annual pre-season poll of ProD2 managers. No wonder, for all intents and purposes, a Top 14 team playing ProD2 rugby.
“I spoke to Philippe and Denis (Philipon), the chairman, and it was obvious that there was only one ambition – to win the league,” said Ardron. “To do that, you have to finish on top.”
Still, there’s no denying that the ProD2 season – however and whenever it ends – is a prelude to the main event in Australia next October. Canada opens its Pool C campaign on Oct. 4 vs Argentina at Brisbane Stadium, ahead of the pool stage matches against Fiji and Spain.
A year before the tournament begins, it’s too early to discuss World Cup goals in anything but vague abstracts, and Ardron was understandably reluctant to speculate on what they might be. But he said: “Looking at the world rankings and where we are compared to the other teams, Spain will be the ones we will be targeting the most. And then Fiji, Argentina will be two really tough games.”
A veteran of the 2015 and 2019 Rugby World Cups, who made his senior debut in 2012, he has seen many changes in the game and in Canada’s order. And he is impressed by the influence of coach Meehan – whose first competitive match was also Ardron’s big return to the international front.
“We’re more expansive,” he said of Meehan’s style of rugby. “He wants to play a more attacking game.”
But the style Meehan introduces is a process, not an imposition. “He came in and didn’t change much at first,” Ardron explained. “I talk to him a lot, even though I don’t play as often as I would like, (but) he got to know the players before he decided how we would play.
When I came back in the summer, he (Steve Meehan) started to put together a plan that played to our strengths.”
“He didn’t necessarily put in ‘his system.’ That’s something he did very well. When I came back in the summer, he started putting together a plan that uses our strengths.”
This is a return to old school coaching principles for Ardron. “It’s a coaching style that you see very often. Most coaches have something they’re comfortable with and they live by the sword, they die by the sword. They bring their style and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.
“He went the opposite way. I haven’t seen that since the Kieran Crowley/Neil Barnes era of Rugby Canada.”
That was over a decade ago. A lot of international rugby has been played since then. The passage of time brings back the theme of retirement. “I feel like it’s probably my last season of club rugby,” Ardron said. But there was a warning. “However, my partner and I love living here (in Provence).
“The only way I would play another year is if I really feel I can offer something that will help the team when they get to the Top 14 to stay there. And if they are equally interested from their side.
“But I don’t know. I wouldn’t say that decision will be made before the new year on either end.”
This, then, looks like Ardron’s long goodbye to rugby. But what about after the game is over? A completely new challenge for the man who lives and breathes them. “I really want to start over, I want to get into a new business and I have to come back and try to find new success.”
Not rugby? “Rugby is such an important part of me. I’ve already helped some kids get into some academies here in France – I’ll always be willing to do that, but at least for a few years.”
“But I don’t want my life to be dictated by rugby. I’d like to have a few weekends where I can just relax.”
Then a catamaran can be included.