How the USA Recovered From an Opening Loss to Finish 3–1 Against Canada

Canada won the opening USA–Canada meeting of 2013, but the USA Tomahawks responded with three consecutive victories across the four listed meetings. The recorded scores produce a 3–1 USA record and a calculated points advantage of 122–94. The Canada Wolverines results record lists all four matches as Colonial Cup fixtures, although conflicting accounts leave the exact competition format and the date of the fourth match unresolved.

2013 USA–Canada results at a glance

The four listed meetings began at Lamport Stadium in Toronto, moved to Garthwaite Stadium in the Philadelphia area, and returned to Toronto for the final two entries.

Date	Result	Winner and record status	Venue
6 July 2013	Canada 36–20 USA	Canada; listed as a Colonial Cup match	Lamport Stadium, Toronto, Ontario
24 August 2013	USA 44–16 Canada	USA; listed as a Colonial Cup match	Garthwaite Stadium, Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, in the Philadelphia area
7 September 2013	USA 28–20 Canada	USA; listed as a Colonial Cup match	Lamport Stadium, Toronto, Ontario
24 September 2013*	USA 30–22 Canada	USA; fourth Colonial Cup entry on Canada’s results page	Lamport Stadium, Toronto, Ontario

The Canadian national-team record supplies the four scores and labels each entry as a Colonial Cup fixture. A separate historical Colonial Cup summary supports the dates and venues of the first three meetings, including Garthwaite Stadium’s location in Conshohocken rather than Philadelphia proper.

*The fourth entry needs qualification. Canada’s results page records a 30–22 USA victory at Lamport Stadium on 24 September. A contemporary report published after Game Three instead announced another Toronto match for 28 September. The result can therefore be included as the fourth listed meeting, but the surviving evidence does not conclusively settle its date or its exact place within the trophy format.

The chronology itself is clear: Canada won the opener 36–20, after which the USA won 44–16, 28–20 and 30–22. Describing these as the “four listed meetings” preserves that result sequence without assuming that the available sources have resolved how every match counted toward the Colonial Cup.

Overall record and aggregate points

Across the four entries, the USA won three matches and Canada won one. Canada led after the first meeting, but every subsequent listed result went to the Americans.

Using the four recorded scores, the points calculation is:

• USA: 20 + 44 + 28 + 30 = 122
• Canada: 36 + 16 + 20 + 22 = 94
• Calculated margin: 122 − 94 = 28 points

That gives the USA a 122–94 calculated aggregate across the four listed results. The calculation follows directly from the scores in the Canadian record; it is not evidence that aggregate points officially decided the 2013 trophy.

The sequence shows how sharply the balance changed. Canada emerged from the opener with a 1–0 match lead and a 36–20 points advantage. The USA’s 44–16 victory in the second meeting reversed both measures: the teams had then scored 64 points to 52 in the Americans’ favour.

Game Three moved the USA ahead 2–1 in matches and 92–72 in cumulative points. The fourth listed result, a 30–22 American win, produced the final 3–1 record and the calculated 122–94 total.

A secondary historical summary lists the United States as the 2013 Colonial Cup winner with three wins and one loss. That supports reporting the available 3–1 outcome as a historical listing, but it should not be treated as an authoritative resolution of the competition’s contradictory format descriptions.

Game Three: USA 28–20 Canada

The third meeting was the USA’s 28–20 victory at Lamport Stadium on 7 September 2013. Although the final margin was eight points, the scoring pattern was much more uneven than the result suggests.

The USA scored three tries in the opening 40 minutes and led 14–0 at halftime. Three further tries after the interval extended the lead to 28–0. Canada then scored the last four tries of the match without reply, reducing the deficit to eight points before time expired.

A contemporary account carrying material attributed to USA Tomahawks Media reported that the Americans outscored Canada by six tries to four. Louis Tulio and Brent Shorten scored two tries each for the USA. Canada’s tries came from Louis Robinson, Ben Fleming, Christian Miller and Robin Legault.

The report includes favourable comments from the USA coach, but those assessments are not needed to explain the result. The scoring record alone shows the decisive pattern: the Tomahawks established a 28-point lead, while the Wolverines’ four-try recovery came too late to overturn it.

There is also a spelling discrepancy in the historical material. The contemporary account renders the American scorer’s surname as Tulio, while another summary gives it as Tuilo. Without a definitive team sheet resolving the difference, the safest record is Louis Tulio/Tuilo, with the variant noted rather than silently corrected.

The win left the USA 2–1 ahead in the listed meetings. The cumulative calculation after three games was:

• USA: 20 + 44 + 28 = 92
• Canada: 36 + 16 + 20 = 72

The Americans therefore held a 20-point calculated advantage at that stage. Game Three should not, however, be described definitively as the match that clinched the Colonial Cup. That conclusion would depend on knowing the governing format, which the surviving accounts describe inconsistently.

Why the 2013 series record needs a qualification

The central problem is not the first three results. Their scores, dates and venues align in the available records. The uncertainty concerns how the competition was structured and how to interpret the fourth entry.

The report published after Game Three explicitly described the 2013 Colonial Cup as a four-game series arranged to give the Tomahawks another match before their Rugby League World Cup campaign. It announced the fourth game for Toronto on Saturday, 28 September. That contemporary description fits a season ending with four meetings and a 3–1 USA record, but it does not provide the eventual fourth result or confirm whether the announced date was retained.

Later accounts point in another direction. A 2016 historical recap says that the Colonial Cup expanded to a best-of-three series in 2013. Under an ordinary best-of-three structure, the contest would be settled when one team reached two victories. The USA did so in Game Three, yet the Canadian results record contains a fourth Colonial Cup entry.

Canada’s national-team page compounds the uncertainty by listing the fourth meeting as a 30–22 USA win at Lamport Stadium on 24 September. That is four days earlier than the date announced after Game Three. The page does not explain the difference, so there is no evidentiary basis for saying the match was rescheduled or that either date is unquestionably correct.

The secondary Colonial Cup summary contains the same underlying tension: it records a 3–1 USA season while also describing the competition as best-of-three. Those two details can be reported as claims in the historical record, but they do not together explain the rules under which the trophy was awarded.

Several possibilities could account for the discrepancy, including a changed format, the classification of an additional international, or an error in a later compilation. None is established by the available sources, so choosing among them would turn an unresolved record problem into speculation.

The defensible conclusion is narrower. Canada won the opening meeting, and the USA won the next three matches listed by the Canadian results page, producing a 3–1 record and a calculated 122–94 points advantage for the USA. The first three fixtures are supported consistently; the fourth is recorded by Canada’s results page, but its date and precise status within the 2013 Colonial Cup structure remain unresolved.