Bok Women eye forward domination and World Rugby rankings rise in 2026

The Springbok Women want to dominate the USA Women’s Eagles at Ellis Park this Saturday in the first fixture of a two-Test series.

Ahead of the Springbok Men’s clash with England in their Nations Championship opener, Swys de Bruin’s team take on an Eagles side they have only ever met six times in the past. To date the USA have won five of those matches.

It will be the first time that the Springbok Women have played a home Test since their Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 campaign, in which De Bruin’s team reached the quarter-final stage of the tournament for the first time.

Coming up against Jack Hanratty’s Eagles will be a stern test. Already this year the USA have played matches against Australia, Canada and New Zealand’s Black Ferns, meaning that intensity is high at Boks training.

“Scrums, set piece defence, wide ruck defence – you name it, we focussed on it and it was a very productive session,” Laurian Johannes-Haupt, Springbok Women assistant coach, said. “So those boxes were ticked for us and with one session remaining on Thursday, we are about as ready as we can be.”

South Africa have other ambitions too. In recent weeks De Bruin’s side have made no secret of their ambition to rise further up the World Rugby rankings.

Their Women’s Rugby World Cup campaign in the early Autumn of 2025 left the team 10th in the World Rugby rankings. Already an all-time high. Now they want to rise further still. A task which starts against the Eagles this weekend.

“We did achieve the best result ever for our squad at last year’s Women’s Rugby World Cup, so the challenge now is to keep improving, lifting the bar higher and higher, and to move up the world rankings,” she said.

“We want to be able to play and compete against any team in the world come the next World Cup. The players want to represent their country to the best of their abilities, but also, they want to make the country proud of their efforts.

“They are standards-driven and any coach must be happy with that. We are well aware of the momentum we can create with two good performances over the next two weekends.”

Before the year is over South Africa will play a five more Test matches. At the start of September they will play the Black Ferns at Johannesburg’s FNB Stadium – a fixture that forms part of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry – before WXV Global Series away fixtures against Wales and Italy, before back-to-back home matches against Ireland in Cape Town.

“We left the jersey in a very special place after the World Cup, but now we need to take it another step, to level up and take that jersey to an even better place,” Micke Gunter, South Africa hooker, said. “Fans can expect a great fight from this team, but also a drive to become better than we have ever been.”