Canada’s Women’s Rugby Team Concludes England tour, looks Towards WXV

September 30, 2023 (London, England) – Canada’s Women’s Rugby Team’s two-match September series against England concluded on Saturday at StoneX Stadium in London, with the Red Roses winning 29-12.

England took a 10-0 lead in the first 12 minutes of play. Down to 14 players following a red card to Gabrielle Senft, Sara Svoboda intercepted a kick by Holly Aitchison and scored to cut England’s lead in half. The Red Roses converted a third try in the final minute of the first half, putting the score at 17-5 at half-time.

“I certainly think we built off of last weekend and we’ll have some momentum going into WXV. I think especially defensively, last week we were a bit soft on defence and I think we got a lot stronger. Unfortunately they still scored too many points on us,” said captain Sophie de Goede. “I thought we fought really well with 14, good intensity on defence, and we’ll work on getting more momentum and flow into our attack earlier in the game.”

England struck again in the 49th minute to increase their lead to 24-5. The Red Roses were successful in scoring once more to bring their points total to 29, but Canada had one last say, with Taylor Perry breaking through England’s defence in the final 10 minutes to score. De Goede converted the try to close out the game.

“It’s still a loss for sure. I think defensively there was more aggression and I think we need to find a balance. Sometimes we get so many penalties that it costs us more easy tries from England, so that’s something we have to fix, to understand when to have the aggression,” said Head Coach Kevin Rouet. “After the red card it became more of a challenge to try to win the game, but I loved our mindset—at half-time we’re talking about how we still want to win the game, and that is the mindset we should have. Offensively I think we need to be better for sure in these kinds of games. There was space outside that we didn’t finish, we attacked too much around the breakdown, and there were easy carries sometimes that we needed to be better at, but I want to recognize our effort till the end.”

Next for Canada’s Women’s Rugby Team is the first edition of WXV, a new three-tier annual women’s international 15s competition. Canada is competing in the top tier (WXV1), which kicks off in New Zealand on Saturday October 21 local time (Friday October 20 in Canada). More information on WXV, including the full schedule, can be found on the official website at wxvrugby.com

The NFP Forward & Back Game Changers is back, and fans can vote virtually for the players (one forward and one back) who they think were game changers for Canada’s Women’s Rugby Team against England. Fans can vote here for a chance to win a $100 Amazon gift card and a signed jersey. Voting closes on Monday October 2 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

About Rugby Canada

Rugby Canada is the national governing body of the sport of Rugby Union in Canada. They administer and operate Men’s and Women’s Senior and Junior National programs in both rugby 15s and 7s, as well as govern the Club and community game for more than 30,000 registered participants from coast to coast .in conjunction with ten Provincial Union members.

Rugby Canada is headquartered at the Al Charron National Training Centre in Langford, BC, with staff also working from Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa. Rugby Canada business operations, programs and events are delivered nationwide, including the internationally recognized HSBC Canada Sevens annual tournaments

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