{"id":565090,"date":"2026-03-26T06:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T06:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/565090\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T06:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T06:48:09","slug":"australia-wallaroos-vs-fiji-womens-test-preview-in-canberra-emily-chancellor-on-new-coach-sam-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/565090\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia Wallaroos vs Fiji; women’s Test preview in Canberra; Emily Chancellor on new coach Sam Needs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wallaroos<\/a> veteran Emily Chancellor says the team has been invigorated by the presence of a new coach and six fresh faces ahead of Friday’s season-opening Test against Fiji.<\/p>\n

Australia is beginning a new cycle after losing to Canada in the Rugby World Cup<\/a> quarter-finals in September.<\/p>\n

Coach Jo Yapp has moved back home to England and former NSW Waratahs prop Sam Needs is in charge on an interim basis.<\/a><\/p>\n

Watch every Wallaroos Test match in 2026, live and ad-free on Stan Sport<\/a> or Channel Nine and 9GEM live<\/p>\n

\"Wallaroos<\/p>\n

Wallaroos coach Jo Yapp and assistant Sam Needs at Sydney Grammar School.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Rugby Australia is expected to decide on a fulltime coach after the Pacific Four Series in April.<\/p>\n

Chancellor said Needs was impressing so far.<\/p>\n

“As a type A human, I love how organised he is and how structured training is. You know exactly where you stand with him,” the Waratahs flanker said.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: DCE’s complicated Manly legacy and why some will boo him<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Gould backs ‘healthy’ Madge stance after ugly coach exit<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Salary rule to stop Kerr cashing in with monster deal in USA<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Layne<\/p>\n

Layne Morgan and Emily Chancellor of Australia celebrate.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

“He’s a pretty black and white character, and that can be confronting at times, but it’s also something that really helps the girls grow in resilience.<\/p>\n

“We’ve had so much time together, we’ve had three internal games that we’ve absolutely bashed the bleep out of each other.”<\/p>\n

Needs’ backline for the Canberra clash includes three uncapped players.<\/p>\n

Western Force pair Nicole Ledington and Brooklyn Teki-Joyce will debut at No.10 and on the left wing respectively while sevens star Sidney Taylor is at outside centre.<\/p>\n

Taylor’s sevens teammate Piper Simons, backrower Lily Bone and hooker Brittany Merlo, are in line for maiden Test appearances off the bench.<\/p>\n

“I am so energised by the new group that’s coming through. They’re fearless, they’re fit, and they’re skilful,” said Chancellor, who has played 34 Tests.<\/p>\n

“The two backrowers (Bone and Dillyn Blackburn) who have joined this squad this year are awesome. They’ve both got so much energy.”<\/p>\n

The Wallaroos have not lost to Fiji in four previous meetings.<\/p>\n

Kickoff at GIO Stadium is at 4.55pm AEDT with Stan Sport coverage from 4.30pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wallaroos veteran Emily Chancellor says the team has been invigorated by the presence of a new coach and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-565090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565090","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=565090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}