We already know seven of the eight quarter-finalists: Canada, England, France, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland and South Africa. They are the teams with two blameless victories. The fun starts with the thrilling 31-31 draw between Australia and the USA. The Wallaroos are the short-odds favourites to advance: they have 5-point lead in the pool table
Full house! 1 August. HIH Princess Akita, Patron of JRFU, to attend two Japan matches 1 August. Deborah Griffin elected first female President of the RFU 1 August. Australia 36 Wales 5 (Sydney) 2 August. France announce 32 players for 2025 RWC 3 August. South Africa 5 New Zealand XV 24 (series 1-1) 4 August.
The game of the tournament. Two sides with high ambitions, but not yet at the top of the class. A win could help make a safe passage through to the quarters. Few of the large crowd at York imagined the drama to come. The Wallaroos made the first move. The forwards drove hard, and the
Cymru were on a hiding to nothing, and even the fates turned against them. Who could imagine both their newly-minted co-captains, Alex Callender and Kate Williams, succumbing to injury? Beth Lewis took charge. As so often, they started well; they reached to two metres from the line; but Canadian confidence shone through as Alex Tessier
If you watched Scotland playing around a decade ago, you wouldn’t recognise the present product. It’s far from perfect, but marks a huge advance. They have a pack that can look after itself and backs, led by Emma Orr and Francesca McGhie, who score the bulk of their tries. Fiji weren’t there to make up
England may have finished the easy winners we all expected, but no-one should deny Samoa’s right to be there. They played throughout with pride and courage. A much changed Red Roses side took three minutes to secure their first score through Meg Jones. Two debutants, Lilli ives Campion with a clean take, then Jade Shekells
The crucial issue for the Red Roses was, who was fit to play? The good news is that Helena Rowland, Claudia Moloney-Macdonald and Mackenzie Carson are all aboard, Rowland slotting in at 10 for a change. That means in turn that Holly Aitchison is still AWOL. Two players. Abi Burton and Lilli ives Campion make
Kevin Rouet becomes the first coach to reveal his side for his second match. The assumption has been all along, head coaches would make wholesale changes across the three group-stage games, if only to give all 32 players an outing. It hasn’t quite worked out like that in this case. Here’s the squad to play
Over the coming weeks rugby fans around the world are likely to be suffering the severe effects of withdrawal symptoms. “I can’t wait for next weekend.” Fortunately, the RWC is now so popular that there are all manner of medicines to stave off the worst effects. First and most obvious, replays of whole matches or
Looking back The tenth world cup got off to a tumultuous start in Sunderland. An unparalleled build-up, then the biggest crowd yet seen at the tournament. We must give due credit to the three women in charge, Sarah Massey, MD of the whole caboosh, Yvonne Nolan, competition director and Sally Horrox, in charge of women’
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