Hosts England, New Zealand, Canada and France top their respective groups unbeaten to lead the charge in the The quarter-final stage of the Rugby World Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first of the four knockout matches will pit New Zealand against South Africa. New Zealand made sure of top spot in Pool C with a bonus-point 40-0 whitewash of Ireland in Brighton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They will play South Africa, who finished runners-up in Pool D after suffering their first loss of the tournament, going down 57-10 against France in Northampton. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Braxton Sorensen-McGee hat-trick helped New Zealand clinch top spot, despite a strong start by the Irish. But the Black Fern were in imperious form and once they broke the Irish defence in the 15 minute, there was no turning back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Kiwis speedily fed the ball through a series of black shirts to Stacey Waaka who darted down the wing to score. Waaka\u2019s fellow centre Sylvia Brunt made an incisive linebreak five minutes later only to be stymied by desperate defending but, when the ball was recycled, prop Chryss Viliko proved unstoppable from short range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scott Bemand\u2019s team went at New Zealand at the start of the second half but in 19 phases of play could find no way through and after Amee Leigh Costigan was denied by the roll of the ball from collecting Dannah O\u2019Brien\u2019s kick through at the corner flag, Sorensen-McGee claimed her third of the match before Maia Jospeh ran in the sixth and final try.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Canada underlined their status at the world’s number-two-ranked team by beating a spirited Scotland to finish top of Pool B and set up a quarter-final with Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Australia finished runners-up in Pool A after their 47-7 loss to England. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Canada won the toss and elected to play with the wind in the first half at a breezy Sandy Park and took advantage with two tries and a penalty try in the opening 40 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scotland, who conceded two scores when number eight Evie Gallagher was off the pitch with a yellow card, stayed in touch with tries from Rhona Lloyd and Gallagher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Canada hooker Emily Tuttosi scored her second try of the match when she powered through the Scotland defence midway through the second half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Helen Nelson looked to have put Scotland back within one score of Canada, but her sparkling try off a set lineout move was ruled out for offside before Brittany Kassil put Canada out of sight with another powerful finish for her team’s fourth try.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Francesca McGhie grabbed the consolation score Scotland’s performance deserved to put her joint top of the RWC 2025 try chart with six, before Olivia DeMerchant finished the scoring with Canada’s fifth try.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
France proved their Rugby World Cup 2025 credentials with an ominous 57-10 win over a shocked South Africa in Pool D at a lively Franklin’s Gardens. They will now plat Ireland in their quarter-final tie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The women’s Springboks entered the last round of pool matches as potential dark horses after two impressive performances against Brazil and, in particular, Italy that seemed to bely their world ranking coming into the tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what was billed as a pool decider was over as a contest by half-time as France scored four first-half tries, mixing up their game brilliantly to give South Africa – albeit showing wholesale changes from their last match – a reality check.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The underdogs’ problems were compounded by Chumisa Qawe’s 20-minute red card in the first half but even with the numbers even, France were ruthless both sides of the ball, scoring five more tries in the second half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa did at least score a try with the final play of the game, Nadine Roos – by far their standout performer – bursting clear to score under the posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Favourites England were made to work hard for their 47-7 victory against Australia at the Brighton & Hove Albion Stadium, and will now play Scotland. The Scots finished second in Pool B after their hard-fought 40-19 loss to world number 2 side Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Australia, knowing they would join England in the quarter-finals ahead of the USA with a defeat by 74 points or less, struck first, Adiana Talakai finishing a well-worked try off the back of a driving lineout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But England hit straight back, Jess Breach marking her 50th cap with her 51st, and probably easiest, test try.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rest of England’s victory was built on their superior forward power, particularly in the scrum. Australia defended heroically but had no answer the the hosts’ relentless physicality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
England scored six more tries, with Sadia Kabeya and replacement prop Kelsey Clifford both touching down twice, to make it a record-equalling 30th victory in a row as a sell-out 30,443 crowd partied in the evening sunshine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hosts England, New Zealand, Canada and France top their respective groups unbeaten to lead the charge in the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,7],"tags":[72],"class_list":["post-3007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-newsbeat","tag-rugby"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zealand-v-Ireland-Womens-Rugby-World-Cup-2025-Pool-C_compressed-scaled.jpg",2560,1706,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zealand-v-Ireland-Womens-Rugby-World-Cup-2025-Pool-C_compressed-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zealand-v-Ireland-Womens-Rugby-World-Cup-2025-Pool-C_compressed-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zealand-v-Ireland-Womens-Rugby-World-Cup-2025-Pool-C_compressed-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zealand-v-Ireland-Womens-Rugby-World-Cup-2025-Pool-C_compressed-1024x682.jpg",640,426,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zealand-v-Ireland-Womens-Rugby-World-Cup-2025-Pool-C_compressed-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zealand-v-Ireland-Womens-Rugby-World-Cup-2025-Pool-C_compressed-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zealand-v-Ireland-Womens-Rugby-World-Cup-2025-Pool-C_compressed-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zealand-v-Ireland-Womens-Rugby-World-Cup-2025-Pool-C_compressed-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"International<\/a> Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zealand-v-Ireland-Womens-Rugby-World-Cup-2025-Pool-C_compressed-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3007"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3338,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3007\/revisions\/3338"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}