France scored 18 unanswered second-half points to beat Ireland at a rainy Sandy Park and book their place in the semi-finals of Rugby World Cup 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
England will play France in the semi-finals after the Red Roses beat Scotland 40-8 in Bristol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conditions were not great throughout the encounter between France and Ireland, but France were particularly atrocious in the first half, where Ireland used the high winds behind them to their advantage and build a 13-0 lead thanks to tries from Linda Djougang and Stacey Flood as well as a Dannah O’Brien penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
France endured a lengthy period of defence on their own line in the final possession of the half, and once they turned over the ball after more than 30 phases to end the half, they came into the second half with much more confidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They didn’t have the same wind behind them as the Irish did in the first half, but France were able to muscle their way into the game and they were rewarded through tries from Charlotte Escudero, who scored of a switch place, and a length-of-the-field effort from Joanna Grisez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Morgane Bourgeois converted one of them to go with her 48th-minute penalty, and when she stepped up and converted another penalty in the 75th minute, she set up a grandstand finish. Ireland were once again camped deep in the French half with time up, and once again the French stood firm to resist multiple phases of attack before an attacking lineout from a penalty saw Manae Feleu leap up and disrupt the throw to win a tense quarter-final in south west England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Given the conditions, the game was an arm-wrestle from start to finish, so the forward battle was going to be key. Number eight Charlotte Escudero scored the try that sparked the comeback for her team and generally stepped up for her team to ensure they will live to fight another day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We really wanted to do a great match,” Escudero said. “The first match was really tough with the wind and everything, but second half we did some amazing plays and we won and we’re so happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We still have a lot of work to do for the semi-final coming up because the first half was really tough and we’ve got to work on that so we can be ready for next week.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
France co-head coach Ga\u00eblle Mignot was proud of the way her team got over the line, but emphasised that they would need to be better in the next round of the knockouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We knew the weather conditions were going to be harsh,” she said. “First half it wasn’t in our favour, then in the second half we took a little time to get into it, but we managed to take advantage of this [wind] and it was a good result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We’re in the semi-final, we know we have a really hard match to come [against England or Scotland]. We’re still in this, we still have a lot of things to work on, but we keep growing in strength, so we’ll see what happens.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ireland head coach Scott Bemand was no doubt feeling the nerves when his players were camped on the French line at the end, but said there were many moments that made up the result, rather than just one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It didn’t just come down to the end. The end of the first half, we understood the potential ramifications in that,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We had a points tally in our head that we thought we’d need to get to. Things can happen, I’ve been in that space before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“One call one way or the other, a finger tip that way or not, you’re either in the game or you’re over.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scotland came into their game with the promise that they would give everything against the number-one ranked team in the world, and they duly delivered with a fast start to the game that delivered the first points in the form of a Helen Nelson penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, England weathered the storm and held firm to take a 26-3 lead into half-time, following a pair of tries from Kelsey Clifford and one each from Morwenna Talling and Abby Dow as England’s forward dominance began to show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scotland were equally stubborn in defence in the second half, but could not hold out completely as Amy Cokayne and Holly Aitchison both crossed for further England tries, but there will still cause for Scotland to smile, as they had the final say at Ashton Gate. A long, sweeping move took them deep into enemy territory, which allowed Rhona Lloyd to cross for the final try of the game in Bristol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Morwenna Talling scored one of the six tries, but that was not her only contribution in the game. She set the tone as the driving force of a pack of forwards that had their opponents’ number and laid the ground work for victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It was really good,” she said. “Obviously the weather wasn’t great but we put our best foot forward and the pack did a great job getting us go-forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It is always massive to play your best rugby. That’s what the tournament is about. The competition only drives each of us to get better and in training it helps us every day and then to put it out in the match is great.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
England head coach John Mitchell heaped praise on his side for the way they navigated the opposition as well as the conditions – but was disappointed that they allowed Scotland to have the final say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I thought it was a terrific performance in very difficult conditions,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We kept them in their own half and we built pressure frequently through our set-piece on them. That’s where we thought we could break them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The pressure by the team was superb. The only little glitch was conceding the line-break late in the game, which is something I don’t really enjoy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Scotland coach Bryan Easson, the match was his final one in charge, and he said it has been a “real privilege” to coach the Scottish players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“A lot of emotions at the moment. Pride. That game doesn’t define us,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We said we wanted to get to the knockout stages and we did that. And just to see Rhona finishing it off at the end and the tears and the joy and the happiness of this group, I’d rather lose with this group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“They’re a special bunch, the deserve everything that they’ve fought for, and I’m sure they’ll keep fighting. It’s been a real privilege for me to work with them.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
France scored 18 unanswered second-half points to beat Ireland at a rainy Sandy Park and book their place<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3270,"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-3269","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\/France-vs-Ireland_compressed.jpg",2048,1200,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/France-vs-Ireland_compressed-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/France-vs-Ireland_compressed-300x176.jpg",300,176,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/France-vs-Ireland_compressed-768x450.jpg",640,375,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/France-vs-Ireland_compressed-1024x600.jpg",640,375,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/France-vs-Ireland_compressed-1536x900.jpg",1536,900,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/France-vs-Ireland_compressed.jpg",2048,1200,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/France-vs-Ireland_compressed-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/France-vs-Ireland_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\/France-vs-Ireland_compressed.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3269","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=3269"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3271,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3269\/revisions\/3271"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}