Two cracking RWC semi-finals.
Friday night brought us a seesaw classic as Canada stormed to a lead before the Black Ferns looked like they might pull off an almighty comeback only for Canada to finally kill the contest off with a Sophie de Goede penalty in the 74th minute. Then in the second semi-final, hot-favourites England looked to be on shaky ground before they pulled away in the final quarter.
Knock-out games are unique and this weekend, it was all about keeping it clean and away from the attention of the referee.
Stat of the week
Seven months ago Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo took 56 minutes 42 seconds to complete the Barcelona half-marathon – a new world record. Remarkably, it took three minutes 32 seconds longer for Canada to concede a penalty during their RWC 2025 semi-final v New Zealand on Friday night.
And during that 60 minute 14 second-period Canada purred into a 31-14 lead.
By comparison, the teams’ discipline flipped in the remaining 19 minutes and 46 seconds, with the Black Ferns conceding just two penalties and Canada six. Perhaps to no surprise this too was reflected in the scoreline, with New Zealand winning that period 5-3.
It was a similar story in the second semi-final. France conceded 11 penalties to eight for England and came away with an 18pt loss.
But why does this matter and why should teams care about their penalty count?
We often hear that the magic number of penalties to concede is 10. Concede more than that and you drop your chances of winning. Or so the perceived wisdom goes. That’s not quite true though. New Zealand conceded more than 10 penalties in three of their five RWC 2025 matches and won all three. Meanwhile, Spain conceded just two penalties in their opening match against the Black Ferns but lost 54-8. Penalties conceded are a measure of the pressure a team is under, in general.
On Friday, Canada were the team applying the pressure and so New Zealand were forced into giving away penalties rather than conceding tries in defence. Or they were under pressure in attack and so coughed up penalties for holding on.
Canada on the other hand, for that first 60 minutes at least, were not under that same pressure. Defensively, they could wait for New Zealand errors rather than stop their attacks through illegal means.
When New Zealand brought the pressure in that last quarter, Canada were at risk of letting them back in. But rather than concede tries or clear cut scoring opportunities, Canada were happy to give up those penalties and take some of the sting out of the game. The Black Ferns might have won that period but they didn’t create the momentum needed to get back into the game.
All that is to say that while no team wants to concede a penalty, in some cases penalties are a better option than giving up more clear cut try scoring opportunities. For an hour, Canada didn’t need to worry about that trade-off and when the pressure did come on they had built enough of a lead and perhaps enough leeway with referee Aimee Barrett-Theron (pictured above) to not worry about possible cards or sin bins.
Platform builders
In their quarter-final, England lost just two of their 80 rucks for a 97.5% ruck success rate. That was the high point of their tournament so far. But that dropped considerably during their semi-final against France where they lost six of 65 rucks for a 90.8% ruck success rate – the lowest of their tournament.
Ruck success comes down to a few elements. The first is quick support players who can get there before your opponents do. The second is strong body position to ensure you don’t get shifted off the ball when the opposition do arrive.
The Canadians will be looking at the French semi-final to understand how they caused England so many problems at the breakdown.
England, of course, will be looking for similar weaknesses in the Canadian side, but there’s none to find there; they won all 100 of their rucks in their semi-final.
The breakdown will be a key battleground in the final, as it is in every game. It’s a battleground that Canada will feel more confident about at the moment.
The unseen game of rugby will be taking place this week. Coaches and analysts will be picking apart the strengths and weaknesses of their own teams and of their opponents. Then second guessing the areas their opponents might try to exploit and trying to shut them down.
Don’t expect to see those same weak spots this week but do expect to see Canada attacking the English breakdown.
Milestones
Last week we spoke about how Canadian Julia Schell is the only player to have played every minute of her team’s four matches. She is now the only player to have played every minute of five matches (that’s 400 minutes). So, of course, should she make it through the final without being substituted of injured, she won’t have missed a minute of this World Cup.
Braxton Sorensen-McGee of New Zealand might not be playing in the final but she is playing for a spot in the record books too. She has scored nine tries this tournament, which is the third in the all-time list behind only Jennifer Crawford (USA) who scored 10 in 1994 and Portia Woodman (NZL) who scored 13 in 2017.
Top spot may be out of reach, but don’t bet against her surpassing Crawford.
Sorensen-McGee is also leading the points total with 59pts. The most points scored in a tournament is 70pts by Emily Scarratt (ENG) in 2014. Sophie de Goede (CAN) is second on 58pts. If she is to surpass the record of Scarratt, expect the Women’s Rugby World Cup Trophy to be heading to Canada for the first time.