England has outclassed Canada 33-13 in front of a delirious record crowd at Twickenham to win the Women’s Rugby World Cup for the third time.<\/p>\n
The tournament hosts came into the final having won 62 of their last 63 matches, a stretch spanning six years.<\/p>\n
The glaring failure during that period was their agonising World Cup final defeat to New Zealand in 2022.<\/p>\n
This time, however, England made no mistake, racing to a 21-8 half-time lead.<\/p>\n
The English defended well and finished strongly to extend their record winning run to 33 matches.<\/p>\n
They were watched on by 81,886 spectators, which was a world record crowd for a women’s rugby match.<\/p>\n
“These girls are awesome,” said coach John Mitchell as England added to its triumphs of 1994 and 2014.<\/p>\n
“Three years ago we set about doing something and we finally took the last few steps today.<\/p>\n
“I think 2022 taught us a lot. We knew we would be good at the rugby but at the end of the day I think our culture won, with the values that have guided us to this point.<\/p>\n
“We can dominate the world for a long time, but the world’s going to get better, so this is just the start.”<\/p>\n
For England, it was a wonderful occasion to cap off a World Cup that has taken the tournament to new heights.<\/p>\n
“This is unimaginable,” England scrumhalf Natasha Hunt said.<\/p>\n
“I am so proud of the girls. I hope this stays for women’s rugby.”<\/p>\n
Canada takes early lead<\/p>\n
Canada, which had to crowd-fund its trip, stole a lineout and sent Asia Hogan-Rochester over for the opening try in the fifth minute.<\/p>\n
It proved only the briefest of blips, however, as England recovered and quickly stamped its authority on the match.<\/p>\n
England hit back through its sharpest attacker, Ellie Kildunne, who scythed through four defenders to score a trademark try under the posts.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ellie Kildunne scored England’s first try of the final. (Getty Images: Mike Hewitt)<\/p>\n
Three years ago, Kildunne scored in the third minute of the final as England raced into an early 14-0 lead, only to eventually lose 34-31 to New Zealand.<\/p>\n
This time, however, England kept its foot on the throat and did not allow Canada, ranked second in the world, a sniff.<\/p>\n
England turned to its driving maul to send Amy Cokayne over for a second try.<\/p>\n
The third came via the strength of number eight Alex Matthews, appearing in her fourth World Cup final and, with Zoe Harrison converting all three tries, it was 21-8 at half-time.<\/p>\n
It took 10 minutes of the second half for England to score its fourth try, with its relentless forward pack smashing a path for Abbie Ward to score.<\/p>\n
Canada, with half its squad still semi-professional, showed terrific spirit as Hogan-Rochester got a second try and it enjoyed a spell camped on the England line.<\/p>\n
England survived and finished strongly as Matthews scored a second try and the crowd were able to relax and roar their team home.<\/p>\n
“It’s frustrating for us because we know we didn’t play our best game,” Canada coach Kevin Rouet said.<\/p>\n
“But I’m very proud of what they did, the sacrifice they made for three years just to get there.<\/p>\n
“It was just missing 80 minutes of good rugby for us to be world champions.”<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day, about 50,000 spectators filed into Twickenham to see New Zealand beat France 42-26 in the third-place play-off.<\/p>\n
Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England has outclassed Canada 33-13 in front of a delirious record crowd at Twickenham to win the Women’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,2065,1208,1736,760,112936,112935,85,112937,21418],"class_list":["post-173677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-canada","tag-england","tag-new-zealand","tag-rugby","tag-rugby-world-cup-final","tag-rwc","tag-sports","tag-twickenham","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173677","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=173677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}