Canada’s Women’s Rugby Team backed by record-setting crowd in loss to New Zealand

A record-setting 10,092 fans attended what is now the largest crowd in Canadian women’s rugby history on Saturday, as Canada’s Women’s Rugby Team took on the New Zealand Black Ferns.

New Zealand struck early, taking a 7-0 lead in the third minute of play. Fabiola Forteza seemed to have scored shortly after, but was held up, resulting in a goal line dropout for New Zealand. With Canada in some penalty trouble, the Black Ferns increased their lead to 21-0. But the Canadians put the momentum back in their favour by winning two penalties in a row and turning the ball over in the ruck, spending the last 20 minutes of the first half in New Zealand’s side of the pitch.

Captain Sophie de Goede was the first to score for Canada. Following a New Zealand penalty for not rolling away five metres from the Black Ferns’ try line, de Goede made use of a quick tap to accelerate the ball over the line. She added a clean kick to bring the score to 21-7.

“I just wanted to get some points on the board,” said de Goede. “Tempo was something we wanted to try and inject into the game and so I thought regardless of whether I ended up getting over or not, at least we could keep them on their toes.”

Canada’s second try of the game came from Forteza. Tyson Beukeboom broke off a maul to offload the ball to Forteza around the five-metre mark. Another conversion from de Goede put the score at 21-14 heading into half-time.

“I thought we did a good job battling back from tough positions, but we put ourselves in those positions. New Zealand’s a world class team so they’re definitely putting the pressure on and they came to play,” said de Goede. “[Playing in front of the record-setting crowd] was special. There’s no words because its never happened before. It’s pretty cool and I hope that just as players before us inspired us, I hope we can inspire the next generation through games like this.”

The second half opened with another New Zealand try and conversion. But Canada put on the pressure, after several phases along New Zealand’s try line, Olivia DeMerchant scored and a third conversion from de Goede helped close the gap 28-21.

“It was all about mindset,” said vice-captain Justine Pelletier. “Our intent was to just keep putting tempo on them and to make them tired. We knew that anything could happen in this kind of game, that we have to be patient and we have to keep pushing even though it’s difficult. For sure those first tries against us were only on us, because we were giving them so many opportunities, so many penalties. I think we were pretty dominant in what we were doing. It’s a matter of details, discipline and a good pass or a good line break.”

New Zealand scored four more tries to eventually take the win 52-21.

Florence Symonds got her first cap for Canada’s Women’s Rugby Team, starting the game on the wing. Claire Gallagher and Olivia Apps came on in the second half to also earn their first caps.

“You could definitely feel the support from all the fans and any time that we needed some energy we could count on them to get behind us and use that momentum,” said Gallagher, who plays at the University of Ottawa. “It was my first cap, so pretty special to play against the reigning World Champions. So now when I look forward, how can I make a bigger impact on the field and how can I get more wins for the team.”

Canada’s Women’s Rugby Team will be back in action on Friday July 14 to play Australia in the final match of the 2023 World Rugby Pacific Four Series. Tickets for the match, which kicks off at 7:00 p.m. ET at TD Place in Ottawa, are available for purchase at rugby.ca/en/tickets.

More information about the 2023 World Rugby Pacific Four Series can be found here.