Women's Rugby World Cup Quarterfinals Offers Thrilling Matchups
Women's Rugby World Cup Quarterfinals Offers Thrilling Matchups
The Womens Rugby World Cup comes down to some potentially thrilling quarterfinals.
New Zealand vs South Africa, Saturday Sept. 13, 8AM ET
Heavily favored, New Zealand comes in with the top two scorers in the World Cup with Braxton Sorense-McGee leading everyone with 38 points and Renee Holmes logging 33.
“There is no next week for us guaranteed," said Black Ferns Captain Ruahei Demant. "That’s the mentality that we are approaching this game with. South Africa are an exciting opposition for us because we haven’t had the chance to play them. In addition to that, they bring a physicality that we haven’t felt yet, so that will be the big challenge for us. We don't get a lot of games each year, and when we do, we're often playing the same teams with Pac[ific] Four, their WXV. So playing teams that a lot of us haven't had the opportunity to come across and learning about their DNA, their strengths and the opportunity. That's the exciting thing about a World Cup and other tournaments that bring all the best teams together.”
South Africa has brought a physical style and new fearless approach that has launched them from also-rans to quarterfinalists. It will be much tougher from here on out, but they have done superbly well.
Canada vs Australia, Saturday, Sept. 13, 11AM ET
Canada is one of the favorites, in our opinion. Sophie de Goede is 3rd in the World Cup in points and Julia Schell is tied for the tournament lead in tries with six. That's right, six tries in three games. Canada has dominated. They are physical up front, but will have their hands full against a very potent Aussie backline.
"I think we've put ourselves in a good position," said captain Alex Tessier, "but [we're] also in a position of pressure. Nonetheless, I think they're a good opposition. Pressure is a privilege and we’re looking forward to a good battle on Saturday."
Alysha Coriggan is also wary of Australia, saying that their 47-7 loss to England showed some significant positied. "I think they nailed their kicking game and have so much speed out wide. They had a good game against England, and we have to be ready for that."
France vs Ireland, Sunday, September 14, 8AM ET
This is probably going to be the closes quarterfinal. These two teams are pretty close as Ireland has had a strong year and a strong WRWC.
Ireland lost to New Zealand but is ready to rebound, said Aoife Dalton.
“We’ve been through a lot together and we’ve managed to bounce back from far bigger defeats than the one we had at the weekend," Dalton said. "We don’t have time to sit around and feel sorry for ourselves. How we approach this game won’t have any major difference to how we approached the others. They were all knockout games for us, we had to win the first two games to guarantee a quarter-final, and we managed to do that.”
“We had a strong pool phase, exactly where we wanted to be," said France's Lina Queyroi, looking back on a 3-0 run. "We’ve put our game in place and built a lot of confidence. We want to keep that going. On the other hand, they just conceded 40 points to the Black Ferns, so they’ll definitely want to bounce back and put in a big performance against us. Knockouts are a reset, but we can take confidence from the way we’ve been playing.”
England vs Scotland, Sunday, September 14, 11AM ET
England is the host and really, really wants to win. So the key thing is to not look past Scotland to the semis or the final.
"It’s one of those things where you don’t make it bigger than it already is," said forwards coach Loouis Deacon. "We’re focusing on our process, it’s a normal week and we’re not adding anything extra that we don’t need to. The girls had an excellent session today which sets us up nicely for the weekend."
Interestingly, while most of the teams have made several players and coaches available for comment, England has not. Pressure? Circling the wagons? We'll see.
All games are live on Paramount+
