It wasn’t ideal playing conditions, a water logged field, driving rain and a weather delay due to lightning but Canada managed to score four tries for a bonus point while keeping Australia off the board. It wasn’t champagne rugby but Canada’s defence got the job done. Outstanding for Canada were Justine Pelletier at scrum half, Julia Omokhuale in the second row, Pam Buisa at flanker and Brittany Kassil at loosehead prop.
How would Rugby Canada divide up the talent for conflicting XVs and 7s commitments in April? We’ve now got the answer. It looks like 7s is the more immediate priority and that XVs is being used to introduce new players at the beginning of the world cup cycle. The 7s team have captured key players like Olivia Apps, Fancy Bermudez, Sabrina Poulin and Alysha Corrigan who would be certain selections on the XVs squad. The XVs team have brought in 8 debutantes.
Canada U21 women have finished their tour in style with a 59-21 win over England. They defeated Ireland 48-24 and the British Army 58-10. A composite 165-55 scoreline, not bad for a team of Canadian university students playing teams (Ireland, England) preparing for the U21 Six Nations in April.
Scorers for Canada in the England match were:
The USA will host the majority of the Pacific Four series in April with Australia hosting New Zealand in the 6th match. It will be interesting for Canada as Jack Hanratty the former Canadian 7s coach will be in charge of team USA for the first time at this tournament. The PWR league in the UK shuts down for April and resumes at the end of May between Rounds 16 and 17 so all UK based players will be available. There was no sign of Sophie de Goede in the Saracens roster this past weekend so her recovery from injury remains a concern.
The World Cup is over, Canadian rugby had its brief moment in the sun but now what? How to build on that momentum? That’s the question, there is no simple answer presented in this article but we’ll start with the post-match interview with coach Kevin Rouet and Alex Tessier. Below you will find the video, the summary of the interview, the transcript and a google trend graph that shows the spike that “women’s rugby” enjoyed over the past week.
Canada’s quick ruck style of play that got them to the final relies on winning the contact area and producing go forward ball, the England defence didn’t allow that and England dictated the style and pace of the match. Canada had won 100% of their scrums going into the match, England pushed the first Canada scrum backwards and sent a message that it would be power over speed on the day. Asia Hogan-Rochester scored both Canada tries and put Canada in the lead early on but England hit back minutes later on a missed tackle and a long range try. Canada would need the perfect game to end England’s winning streak and with the missed tackles and handling errors it wouldn’t be their day.
Sophie de Goede is one of three players nominated for the World Rugby’s Women’s Player of the Year award. The Canadian Press article by Neil Davidson is posted below. We went through our BCRN articles back to 2015 when Sophie was still in high school. During that time period she not only played for her high school but was also playing regionally for the Vancouver Island Crimson Tide team, the BC age-grade teams and the Canada Development team.
Canadian rugby fans knew that Canada could defeat NZ, they’ve done it before but no one thought they would dominate from the opening whistle, building up a 24-7 lead at the half, and then 31-7 early in the second half. NZ scored two second half tries at the 56′ and 65′ marks to put fans on the edge of their seat but Sophie de Goede put the worries to rest with a penalty kick at 74′ to make it a 3 score lead with 6 minutes left, 34-19.
It was Canada’s best performance to date at the World Cup as they scored three tries through the backs in the first 20 minutes and then the forwards took over and finished off the match with three tries, Sophie de Goede also added a try at the 18′ mark and four conversions.
Canada were ahead 19-5 at the half but it wasn’t a comfortable lead as Scotland had much of the play in the first 30 minutes and it was a yellow card picked up by the TMO at the 30′ that turned the match around. The referee had penalized Canada heavily early in the match, often getting the scrum infractions wrong, penalizing Canada even though they had the stronger scrum. She also missed the important yellow card infraction where a Scottish hand knocked the ball on from an offside position near the goal line, the TMO picked it up. What ensued was a penalty try from the scrum and a try by Emily Tuttosi that took a close 7-5 match to 19-5 at the half.