{"id":136712,"date":"2025-09-12T03:11:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T03:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/136712\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T03:11:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T03:11:08","slug":"wallaroos-ring-changes-as-they-target-rugby-world-cup-upset-over-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/136712\/","title":{"rendered":"Wallaroos ring changes as they target Rugby World Cup upset over Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Wallaroos have recalled hooker Katalina Amosa and lock Ashley Fernandez for their Women’s Rugby World Cup quarterfinal against Canada, with their coaching staff still adamant Australia can pull off the upset of the tournament.<\/p>\n

“The quarterfinal is what we wanted, and once you get into the knockout stages, anything can happen. It’s an incredibly exciting opportunity for us,” said assistant coach Gill Bourke after the team announcement on Thursday, local time.<\/p>\n

“We want to go as far as we can in this now, so we’re approaching it like that, and we’re not getting too bogged down on who we’re playing.”<\/p>\n

The Wallaroos are outsiders to earn their first win over a Canada side ranked second in the world, but coach Jo Yapp feels she has a powerful outfit at her disposal capable of pulling off a boilover at Bristol’s Ashton Gate stadium.<\/p>\n

She has made two personnel changes, with Amosa and Fernandez returning to the bench.<\/p>\n

Amosa featured against Samoa and the USA earlier in the tournament, while Fernandez has not played since the Samoa opener.<\/p>\n

Tania Naden and Annabelle Codey have been dropped from the squad, while Yapp has also reshuffled her back row and centre pairing from the side that went down 47-7 to tournament favourites England in the final group match.<\/p>\n

Flanker Emily Chancellor has replaced veteran Ashley Marsters, who reverts to the bench.<\/p>\n

Centre Cecilia Smith has also been promoted to the starting XV, pushing another experienced international, Trilleen Pomare, to the bench.<\/p>\n

There was good news on the injury front, too, with Lydia Kavoa ready to start as prop despite having left the field against England at Brighton in the first half with an ankle injury.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

Yapp said she wanted to see the team deliver the same effort as last weekend when it led the world’s top-ranked side for half an hour, but that it would need to sustain that level for longer against the so far unbeaten Canadians.<\/p>\n

“We started well against England with our game management and need to show that for longer periods of the game this week,” she said.<\/p>\n

“The focus in training is on us. Canada is a physical team and like to move the ball, so we are excited for the challenge.”<\/p>\n

Star winger Desiree Miller echoed that theme, recognising the need for the team to be more consistent.<\/p>\n

\"Desiree<\/p>\n

Desiree Miller said the Wallaroos must be more consistent. (AP: Dave Shopland)<\/p>\n

“It’s our Achilles heel at the moment, being consistent,” said Miller. “We showed up in the first 20, 30 minutes, and we’re all over England. We had the mentality that we had nothing to lose and they’ve got a 30-game winning streak to lose; we thought we could cause an upset, and we did do that for the first 30 minutes.”<\/p>\n

The Wallaroos have never beaten Canada in seven attempts, and lost their last meeting 45-7 in May.<\/p>\n

WALLAROOS TEAM TO PLAY CANADA<\/p>\n

1 Lydia Kavoa, 2 Adiana Talakai, 3 Asoiva Karpani, 4 Kaitlan Leaney, 5 Michaela Leonard, 6 Piper Duck, 7 Emily Chancellor, 8 Siokapesi Palu (capt), 9 Sam Wood, 10 Faitala Moleka, 11 Desiree Miller, 12 Cecilia Smith, 13 Georgina Friedrichs, 14 Maya Stewart, 15 Caitlyn Halse<\/p>\n

Replacements: 16 Katalina Amosa,17 Faliki Pohiva, 18 Bridie O’Gorman, 19 Ashley Fernandez, 20 Ashley Marsters, 21 Tabua Tuinakauvadra, 22 Tia Hinds, 23 Trilleen Pomare.<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n

Do you have a story idea about women in sport?<\/p>\n

Email us abcsport5050@your.abc.net.au<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Wallaroos have recalled hooker Katalina Amosa and lock Ashley Fernandez for their Women’s Rugby World Cup quarterfinal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,2065,94101,94100,50937,760,2633,15131,85,19259,58463,20241],"class_list":["post-136712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-canada","tag-desiree-miller","tag-katalina-amosa","tag-quarter-final","tag-rugby","tag-rugby-union","tag-rugby-world-cup","tag-sports","tag-wallaroos","tag-womens-rugby","tag-womens-rugby-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}