Two more needed…<\/p>\n
Record figures in France & South African ‘giant’ awakens<\/p>\n
The weekend’s quarter-finals marked watershed moments for two powerhouses of the global game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
First up, a record 3.45 million people watched France’s devastating second-half comeback v Ireland – with 4.6 million tuned in by the nail-biting finale!\u00a0<\/p>\n
Expect a whole host more for the nation’s semi-final v England on Saturday, kick-off 15:30 BST – tickets available here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n But it wasn’t just the victors claiming the popular spoils, with South Africa head coach Swys de Bruin in no doubt that his side’s brave 46-17 loss to New Zealand<\/a> signalled the Springbok Women’s arrival as a force to be feared – read all about it here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Try of the tournament so far?\u00a0<\/p>\n There have been some stunners already – and plenty more to come no doubt – but this effort from French flier Joanna Grisez in the epic Exeter win over Ireland will surely take some beating:\u00a0<\/p>\n Here is some deep analysis of it…<\/p>\n Although even as we big up Grisez’s claim, we can’t help but think of this beauty from the Black Ferns the week before!<\/p>\n If you want to have a good time – and make your on call on the best score so far – head here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Du Plessis gets unique goodbye<\/p>\n Being forced to leave a Rugby World Cup prematurely with injury is never anything but devastating, however, New Zealand did their very best to cheer Amy du Plessis up:\u00a0<\/p>\n The back-three star has been replaced by former professional netball player Mererangi Paul – full story here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n De Goede headlines Fantasy Team of the Week… again<\/p>\n The goal-kicking forward Sophie de Goede has rightly been lauded throughout this Rugby World Cup and should Canada go on to win a maiden title, she will no doubt have a huge role to play. But in the meantime, the second-rower has to make do with being named in our Fantasy Team of the Week for the fourth time in succession.\u00a0<\/p>\n Read all about the XV here<\/a>, with All Black star Braxton Sorensen-McGee shining almost as bright as de Goede – a sign for the pair’s monumental-looking semi-final clash perhaps?\u00a0<\/p>\n Dow crochets her way into referees’ hearts\u00a0<\/p>\n Not content with simply scoring her 50th international try, and helping drive her team to a 31st consecutive win, Abby Dow has also been busy crocheting. Of course she has!\u00a0<\/p>\n “One of the reasons I got into crocheting is because my love language is gift-giving and now I\u2019m getting all these crochet gifts from the crowd, all the fans are giving me their love and I love it, it\u2019s very cute,” Dow said after the quarter-final win over Scotland<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n “What I love about crochet is that it\u2019s not just making clothing, you can make all sorts of things with your imagination.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stats behind Red Roses’ record-breaking run Winning 31 international rugby matches in a row is not bad. Doing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105,4277],"class_list":["post-19605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Fantasy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/16x9FantasyR4v2.jpg\")
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