Watch the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup live and on-demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nThe 21-year-old made her debut for the Wallaroos in 2024 but injury derailed her chance of solidifying her spot.<\/p>\n
Shoulder and back injuries ruled her out of the 2025 Super Rugby W season, leaving coach Jo Yapp to inform her that the odds were against her to make the World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cJo was actually over in WA when I found out\u00a0that I wouldn’t be able to play Super [Rugby W] and she told me that odds were I wouldn’t make World Cup,\u201d Wood told the media.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn’t really like her telling me I wasn’t going to make it,\u00a0but it was sort of like I just wanted to prove that I could do it as well.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Wood wasn’t going to die wondering.<\/p>\n
\u201cInitially, we didn’t actually know what the injury was, and my sights were looking like I would come back for the Super Rugby season and then still be able to come back, and I think that’s why it was so tough because my return date kept getting pushed back and pushed back,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think all of the up and downs I’ve had over the last six to nine months makes this much more enjoyable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The scrum half worked her way back into contention at club level before inspiring performances against Wales in their two-Test series, forcing Yapp\u2019s hand to start the Kalamunda junior.<\/p>\n
“I think I knew that I was really capable of performing the way that I wanted to, which I didn’t in the previous matches, which really ate at me,” she admits.<\/p>\n
“That Wales game felt really good, and I don’t think it was just me; the whole team came out firing.”Outside of pushing for a Crocs sponsorship (the scrum half owns several pairs), Wood is focused on soaking in the World Cup experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really special.\u00a0I’ve always dreamed of going to a World Cup,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“To be able to run out there wearing the jersey,\u00a0it was really, really special.\u00a0Something I’ll never forget.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone was just really energised for the first game of the World Cup so it felt really great.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wallaroos scrum half Samantha Wood spent the year thinking her World Cup dream was over. Now, the Force…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,15131,85,19259],"class_list":["post-98227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-rugby-world-cup","tag-sports","tag-wallaroos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98227","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=98227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}