Al Charron

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Al Charron (born 27 July 1966 in Ottawa, Ontario) is a former Canadian rugby union footballer. He played at back-row forward and was capped 80 times for the Canadian national team, the Canucks. He played club rugby for Ottawa, Bristol and Pau and Dax and also Moseley in England.

Charron was a favourite with the supporters of many of the European clubs he played for. While playing with Bristol he was voted the supporters' Player of the Season for 1998/99 and was awarded the BBC West Rugby Player of the Year award in 1999.^[1]

He was a vital member of the highly-regarded Canadian forward pack that did so well at the 1991 Rugby World Cup, defeating Fiji and Romania and giving both France and New Zealand a hard time. He was the only Ontario player on the field against New Zealand, the others all coming from British Columbia. He scored a famous try to defeat Wales at Cardiff Arms Park in late winter 1993. That day he was playing out of his usual flank position, packing down in the second row for an injured Norm Hadley.

Noted for recovering from severe knee damage to participate in the 2003 Rugby World Cup as the captain of Canada, his fourth Rugby World Cup tournament. He became only the second international rugby union player of any country to do so, the other being former team-mate and previous Canadian captain Gareth Rees.

He retired from international rugby union on Canada's defeat of Tonga in the 2003 Rugby World Cup pool match.

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