Teenage fullback Caitlyn Halse will make Women’s Rugby World Cup history with Wallaroos coach Jo Yapp unveiling the Australian line-up for their opening pool match in England against Samoa.<\/p>\n
Yapp has included 10 World Cup debutantes for the Salford clash on Saturday (9pm AEST), while Ash Marsters has been named on the bench in her third tournament.<\/p>\n
NSW Waratahs rising star Halse, who has 11 caps, is set to become the youngest Australian woman to ever play at the global showpiece.<\/p>\n
Becoming the youngest debutante in either the men’s or women’s Test teams in 2024, the 18-year-old will eclipse the previous World Cup record set by Millie Boyle in 2017 (19 years, 82 days) when she takes the field.<\/p>\n
Katalina Amosa will start at hooker while her older brother Brandon Paenga-Amosa is the reserve rake for the Wallabies, who will take on the Springboks in Cape Town a few hours later.<\/p>\n
The pair are the third sister-brother combination to play Test rugby for Australia.<\/p>\n
Kaitlan Leaney will become the 20th captain of the Wallaroos, joining back-rower Emily Chancellor in sharing the duties against Samoa.<\/p>\n
The Wallaroos will be boosted by the return of prop Brianna Hoy, who will come off the bench for her first game since rupturing her ACL during a training session in Ireland last September. The Coffs Harbour product is one of five changes to the side that defeated Wales at North Sydney Oval earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Experienced pair, prop Asoiva Karpani and centre Cecilia Smith return to the starting line-up, Adiana Talakai is the back-up hooker while veteran outside back Lori Cramer also comes into the 23 as a utility on the bench.<\/p>\n
Sevens superstar Charlotte Caslick was ruled out of the tournament following ankle surgery, while injured skipper Siokapesi Palu (foot) is with the squad but was unavailable for selection.<\/p>\n
The Wallaroos have previously met Samoa once in a Test match for an 87-0 victory in 2010. More recently an Australia A side defeated Manusina 50-22 in Canberra.<\/p>\n
Yapp said preparation had been smooth in their northern England base.<\/p>\n
“We’ve had a good week settling into Manchester with everyone making us feel really welcomed and the players have hit the ground running at training,” she said in a statement. “We know Samoa will be a tough, physical side and we need to match it with them on Saturday.<\/p>\n
“There are no second chances at a World Cup and for us it starts with a good performance in our first match and building from there.<\/p>\n
“It’s also fantastic to see Bri Hoy back in the team. We know how hard she has worked to make a return in time for the World Cup and she is deserving of her spot.<\/p>\n
“We’re also really pleased to be able to give co-captaincy to Kaitlan Leaney, who is growing as a leader in the team every day.”<\/p>\n
The Women’s Rugby World Cup will be the eighth campaign for the Wallaroos, with their best finish coming in 2010 when finishing third.<\/p>\n
Following Samoa, the Wallaroos take on USA on August 31 and top-ranked tournament hosts England on September 6 to complete their pool matches.<\/p>\n
WALLAROOS: Caitlyn Halse, Maya Stewart, Georgina Friedrichs, Cecilia Smith, Desiree Miller, Faitala Moleka, Samantha Wood, Tabua Tuinakauvadra, Emily Chancellor (co-capt), Piper Duck, Michaela Leonard, Kaitlan Leaney (co-capt), Asoiva Karpani, Katalina Amosa, Faliki Pohiva. Reserves: Adiana Talakai, Brianna Hoy, Bridie O’Gorman, Ashley Fernandez, Ashley Marsters, Layne Morgan, Tia Hinds, Lori Cramer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teenage fullback Caitlyn Halse will make Women’s Rugby World Cup history with Wallaroos coach Jo Yapp unveiling the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-87163","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\/87163","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=87163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}