It is simple for Magali Harvey, Canada has the personnel and the plan to lift the Women’s Rugby World Cup Trophy for the very first time. They just need one thing to go their way.
“The weather is going to play a big role, because a style like theirs would be very tricky in heavy rain,” former winger Harvey, who helped drive Canada to the final of RWC 2014, said with a laugh.
“But in terms of whether they can win, on paper they can definitely win it. They have the team for it.”
‘It’s brilliant’
The all-court manner in which Canada have cruised into the semi-finals – scoring 193 points and conceding just 31 – has drawn plenty of admiring gasps. Not least from 35-year-old Harvey, who was there on the training pitch when head coach Kevin Rouet first revealed his masterplan.
“I was on the team in 2023 practicing with them and I was understanding ‘OK, this is the style that he’s going for’, which is entirely different from the past strategy,” said Harvey, who only retired from rugby in April this year.
“It’s brilliant. To have such versatile players that are able, irrelevant of their position, to play scrum half, to distribute a 15-20 metre pass leads to a lot of unpredictability.
“I really think if Canada is able to impose their own tempo and play their style irrelevant of who they’re playing against, and not respect them too much in terms of leaving them time and space, I really think that they can win. I believe it.”
‘A beautiful journey’
While there were plenty of “beautiful moments” in the Pool B victories over Wales, Fiji and Scotland, it was the 46-5 quarter-final dismantling of Australia that has got Harvey truly believing that this team can get past New Zealand in Friday night’s semi-final (kick-off at 19:30 BST in Bristol – get your tickets here) and do what hers never quite managed.
“The last game against Australia was beautiful, all of those moments of trying to play with a fast pace suddenly paid off and with fewer mistakes,” Harvey said. “It turned into very exciting rugby.”
The former winger knows better than most just what a journey it has been for Canada, the world No.2 ranked side, to arrive at a RWC semi-final as genuine contenders.
“Canada has to be creative in so many components because we don’t have the budget, because we don’t have professional contracts. We have to kind of find ways to make it work,” she explained.
An effort to raise one million Canadian dollars in order to best fund their RWC 2025 mission was indicative of this. But now they are here, tales of inequality mean little. Instead, there is the driving ambition to seize the moment.
“I think that semifinals and finals bring a nation together and so right now, Canada is very excited,” Harvey explained.
“It’s a beautiful journey and I am really proud of the girls.”
‘Free-spirited rugby’
Now, they just have to find the perfect ending to that journey. Starting with defeating the six-time champions, a team they got the better of in 2024 – winning 22-19 in the Pacific Four Series – and drew with last time out in May.
“If you watch the South Africa game against New Zealand (a 46-17 quarter-final win for the defending champions after the match was poised at 10-10 at half-time) you see they are stoppable, and it’s just that South Africa got tired, and were not able to maintain the defence,” Harvey said.
“I hope what I see is a Canadian team that doesn’t care who they’re playing. Yeah, they care in the sense that they respect them, but not to the point where they stop themselves from trying things for fear that it doesn’t work out.
“That they’re still able to play free-spirited rugby, moving it at fast pace, and everyone plays whatever they see in front of them, irrelevant of their position.”
Do that and Harvey expects a repeat of the 2014 final. Just with a different result this time around…