| An interception try by Munster centre Diogo Mateus in the ninth minute, which was converted by Pedro Cabral, gave the 21st ranked team in the world a shock 7-5 lead over their hosts at Twin Elm Park in Nepean, Ottawa.
But the Canadians were able to recover from that early shock and eventually ran out 42-12 winners, scoring six tries.
Canadian coach Ric Suggitt has delved back in time to try to uncover a pack to compete with Wales and Australia in France and he re-united 37-year-old Rod Snow and 32-year-old Jon Thiel in the front row against Portugal.
Both players are well known in Wales. Snow became a legend of Rodney Parade with a decade of service to Newport and the Dragons, while Thiel had spells with Bridgend.
Suggitt coaxed both players to return to the Test arena – Snow quit more than a year ago and Thiel underwent open heart surgery 14 months ago – and they look set to start against Wales on September 9th in Nantes.
“It’s like back to the future having Snow and Thiel in the front row, the only difference is that Pat Riordan is hooking instead of Mark Cardinal,” admitted Suggitt.
“Rod and Jon offer us a ton of experience and we have good bench strength in the Pletch boys. Once age catches up to Rod and Jon, we’ll throw in some youthful enthusiasm in Dan and Mike.”
In fact, the Canadian pack boasted four players with Welsh experience. As well as Snow and Thiel, Suggitt fielded former Wales U19, Cardiff and Ospreys lock Luke Tait and ex-Llanelli forward Jamie Cudmore in his starting line-up.
The Portuguese side, who have qualified for the World Cup finals for the first time this year, had gone down 34-18 to a Canadian Select XV the previous weekend and were tougher opponents than expected.
"I'm happy for the guys that they won the game, but as a coaching staff now we have to go back to the drawing board and make sure we do a better job preparing our guys," said Suggitt.
“We had a bit of adversity in the game, which was good for our guys. Now we just have to claw back, regroup and rebuild for the next two weeks before we get to the Rugby World Cup."
South African-born wing DTH van der Merwe followed up his hat-trick of tries against the Portuguese the previous weekend with two more. That took his Test tally to four in three matches and helped his reputation grow even bigger.
Mike Pyke, Thiel, David Spicer and Justin Mensah-Coker scored the other tries for the Cannucks and James Pritchard kicked 12 points.
Canada
Tries: DTH van der Merwe (2), M Pyke, J Thiel, D Spicer, J Mensah-Coker
Cons: J Pritchard (3)
Pens: J Pritchard (2)
Portugal
Tries: D Mateus, J Pinto
Con: P Cabral
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