Laetitia Royer column: ‘We want to put England in an uncomfortable situation’

We’re so excited to finally have people in the crowd cheering for us. That is not something we have had regularly as a Canada team.

Three weeks ago in France, the crowd was so loud. French supporters are quite passionate. We want to feel that extra inch that home support can give us. It could give us some extra oomph and help build momentum on our side.

I hope that the almost 20,000 supporters at BMO Field can give us that and finally put England in an uncomfortable situation. They’ve had things relatively easy in terms of travel over the years.

Being really honest, that home support isn’t something that Kévin [Rouet, Canada head coach] or any of us in camp have really talked about. We’ve mainly been focusing on bringing young players into the group.

A lot of what we have done has been about settling into a groove, building on the performances we have started to produce, but adding a bit more consistency in key areas, such as the set-piece, fluidity in the backs and defence.

It is interesting looking at our games in September. We won one, drew one and lost one. In that order.

We gave everything in our draw against England. Then, against France, we may have underestimated them, focused too much on them and forgotten who we are a little bit.

A lack of connection and adaptability was probably down to a bit of fatigue, too. We started the week in Cognac and then moved to La Rochelle. It was a wake-up call that we can use across these next two weeks.

You don’t always want wake-up calls, but sometimes you need them. That is what happened, and we are going to learn from it. We have such a good group, with a lot of young players who have come in and risen to the challenge. We are not rebuilding; we are maintaining the same standards. That has really impressed me this year.

We do have the Toronto crowd in mind for this Friday. We’ve never been in an environment where all that noise has been in our own stadium. I think we’re going to have to start shouting at — and over — each other in training to try to get used to it.

I was told the other day that the last time England travelled to Canada, outside of WXV 1 in 2024, was in 2015. It is very different for them. I once played on a tour when we played in New Zealand, Australia and the USA. England never have that.

Honestly, I do not think that will have a major impact on them. They have experienced players in that team. Once you get onto the pitch, you can get into the zone quite quickly, too. Your environment doesn’t affect your performance directly.

Maybe it can affect lineouts and communication on the pitch — it did for us in Exeter — but generally, you just adjust. Their plays are so well drilled that I don’t know whether the crowd noise can affect their structure at all.

We are, perhaps, more reliant on connection, small conversations and reading the pictures in front of us before adapting. So, maybe it could affect us.

Let’s go back to that game in Exeter. It sort of feels inevitable. I wasn’t on the pitch when we kicked the ball out. Maybe I was more removed from the situation. It was a tactical decision. Perhaps, in one of the next two games — which are both against England — we may take that opportunity.

 

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We had achieved what we had wanted to, in a sense, by taking them all the way to the 80th minute and still having the ball on our 22-metre line. There was a lot of context to consider. Was it worth taking that risk at that moment?

It is interesting, too, that in the lead-up to that game, all everyone spoke about was the Women’s Rugby World Cup final the year before. That game wasn’t characteristic of us or the team that we are. It wasn’t our day in the final — that was it.

We went into Exeter with confidence. Confidence that we had earned from our games earlier in the year and from the collective strength we have. This year, we have so much more depth in the squad, and our performances have shown that.

England perhaps rely on individual players. For us, we have value across the team, and that collective strength is worth more.

I was also struck, while playing England again, by how differently I felt about them as a team. I had the same feeling after I started playing in France. All of a sudden, I knew players. I knew what they did or didn’t like and how they might react under pressure.

I’ve only played in the PWR [JAECOO Premiership Women’s Rugby] for a year, but I have that feeling now after playing with and against so many of these England players.

At club level, the pressure is lower. You see those players in front of you and think, “I know you.” Before, I only knew them from watching footage. You do learn things about players, like how they react under pressure. I like using my presence and pressure to get into people’s heads a little bit. That helps mentally.

Since my last column, ahead of the PWR final, it has been announced that I will be joining Trailfinders Women next season. I am excited about it; there are so many Canadians there.

Ahead of the Scotland game in September, Kev invited Barney [Maddison, Trailfinders Women head coach] into camp to give him a little insight into how we operate and our overall vision.

I got to see another side of him, and that was really positive. I am really happy with my choices and with the prospect of playing with that group and all its characters. That will be one of the most intriguing things. There are certainly some characters there.