Australia launched their Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup campaign with a record-breaking 73-0 thrashing of Samoa in Salford on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The Wallaroos ran in 11 tries, with wing Desire Miller scoring a first-half hat-trick.<\/p>\n
Australia surpassed both their previous highest points tally for a World Cup match \u2014 62-12 against South Africa in 2006 \u2014 and largest winning margin at the global showpiece of 62-0, also against South Africa, in 2010.<\/p>\n
It was the second utterly lopsided Pool A game in as many days after tournament hosts and favourites England launched the competition with a 69-7 hammering of the United States in Sunderland on Friday.<\/p>\n
But so dominant were the Wallaroos, coached by former England captain Joanne Yapp, they lead the group on points difference from the Red Roses.<\/p>\n
Full-back Caitlyn Halse, the youngest player to represent Australia at a Women\u2019s World Cup at the age of 18, scored arguably the best of the first half-tries when hitting a brilliant line to sprint clear.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a bit nerve-wracking going out there, seeing so many fans but once I got my hands on the ball I was good to go,\u201d said Halse.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a couple of the older girls get around me, and calm me down and then I was straight into the game and got my hands on the ball.\u201d Samoa, ranked 15th in the world, are competing at their first Women\u2019s World Cup since 2014 and, with half of the team having to self-fund their involvement, there has long been concerns about just how competitive they would be at this edition.<\/p>\n
With the World Cup expanded to 16 teams from 12, blowout scorelines in the pool phase were always a possibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew Australia were going to be tough,\u201d said Samoa coach Ramsey Tomokino, adding: \u201cOur players now understand what it\u2019s like to be at a Rugby World Cup. It\u2019s not the result we wanted, but credit to Australia.\u201d Saturday\u2019s success sets up Australia for a highly charged clash with the United States next week to determine who will likely qualify alongside England for the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
Samoa face another likely gruelling clash against England, with their task made harder after Melina Grace Salale was sent-off late in Saturday\u2019s match.<\/p>\n
England coach John Mitchell, speaking after his side\u2019s rout of the Eagles, said he intended to rotate his squad against Samoa.<\/p>\n
But given England won a fourth successive Grand Slam while effectively playing two different sides during this year\u2019s Women\u2019s Six Nations, there is every chance they will condemn Samoa to another heavy defeat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia launched their Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup campaign with a record-breaking 73-0 thrashing of Samoa in Salford on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-91350","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\/91350","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=91350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}