{"id":68492,"date":"2025-08-15T08:50:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T08:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/68492\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T08:50:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T08:50:03","slug":"womens-rugby-world-cup-england-lead-contenders-for-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/68492\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s Rugby World Cup: England lead contenders for tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of more damage to Wales’ hopes than that scoreline may be an ankle injury suffered by co-captain Alex Callender.<\/p>\n

The number eight has been named in Wales’ squad, but is a doubt for that important opener against Scotland.<\/p>\n

“We have to leave Australia in Australia and then it is about the focal point of the World Cup,” said Lynn after the second Test defeat.<\/p>\n

Wales have also gone through their own contracts dispute, with players claiming they were blackmailed into signing deals by the Welsh Rugby Union’s (WRU) hard-ball negotiating tactics and threats to cancel matches last year.<\/p>\n

The WRU has since apologised and said it should have done better.<\/a><\/p>\n

Star wing Jasmine Joyce-Butchers, who made her debut in 2017, says the current environment is one of the best she has experienced with Wales.<\/p>\n

“The girls are brilliant – Lynny [Sean Lynn] and the coaching staff have been outstanding,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It’s definitely a place now where I can be my true self and express who I am and I don’t get judged for that.<\/p>\n

“We’ve just got to remember that we are in such a better place than we were last year.”<\/p>\n

As an appetiser for the tournament, New Zealand’s 27-27 draw with Canada, external<\/a> in Christchurch in May was hard to beat.<\/p>\n

A hammer-and-tongs contest, with the two sides never separated by more than seven points, ended with a 22-phase, 83rd-minute Black Ferns try levelling the score and a conversion to snatch victory flying wide.<\/p>\n

Holders New Zealand have a habit of peaking for the World Cup – winning six of the eight they have competed at.<\/p>\n

After losing six out of 10 games during a difficult 12 months from mid-October 2023, head coach Allan Bunting believes his team are rising to the occasion once more.<\/p>\n

“We’re a different team now,” Bunting said.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think Canada and England have experienced the team that we are now. So it’s going to be which team steps up when they need to.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Of more damage to Wales’ hopes than that scoreline may be an ankle injury suffered by co-captain Alex…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-68492","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}