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Wales Women announce team for quarter-final against the Black Ferns
Wales Women head coach Ioan Cunningham has made four changes and one positional switch for the Rugby World Cup quarter-final against New Zealand in Whangarei on Saturday.
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In the backs, Keira Bevan and Lowri Norkett are handed their first starts of the tournament at scrum-half and on the right wing respectively, with Jasmine Joyce moving to full-back. Up front, Donna Rose and Carys Phillips return to the front row to take their place alongside Cara Hope who has started every game.
Hannah Jones retains the captaincy of the side, while Lleucu George and Gwenllian Pyrs are set to make their first appearances of the competition from the bench.
Cunningham said, “It’s a hugely exciting week for us all, the girls have done extremely well to get to this point and we should all be proud of that. We have a tough task on Saturday facing the Black Ferns on their home patch. They are in good form, scoring a lot of points and playing well.
“However, we have nothing to lose, we intend to go out and leave everything on the field.
“We had some set piece dominance in our Pool game against them but we also created quite a few chances, many of which we didn’t convert.
“New Zealand have got good athletes across the park, they keep the ball in hand so we’ve selected a back three who can cover a lot of ground and maintain a high level of physicality with Jaz at full-back and Lisa and Lowri on the wings.
“Keira has made a positive impact coming off the bench so deserves to start at scrum-half while Ffion has a different role this week. Lleucu’s attitude has been excellent and she deserves to get a chance. She’s got a good passing game too.
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“It’s good to see Gwenllian Pyrs in the matchday 23 too having returned to fitness and form in time for the quarter-final.
“We will be playing in front of a huge home crowd and we will need to feed off the atmosphere. To play New Zealand twice in a world cup is 100% the experience you want to grow as a team – it’s only going to raise our standards short term but also longer term too.”
Wales team v New Zealand:
15 Jasmine Joyce
14 Lowri Norkett
13 Carys Williams-Morris
12 Hannah Jones (capt)
11 Lisa Neumann
10 Elinor Snowsill
9 Keira Bevan
1 Cara Hope
2 Carys Phillips
3 Donna Rose
4 Natalia John
5 Gwen Crabb
6 Bethan Lewis
7 Alex Callender
8 Sioned Harries
Replacements:
16 Kelsey Jones
17 Gwenllian Pyrs
18 Sisilia Tuipulotu
19 Georgia Evans
20 Siwan Lillicrap
21 Ffion Lewis
22 Lleucu George
23 Megan Webb
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Comments on RugbyPass
Wasnt late. Ref 2 assistants andTMO all saw it so who are you to say it was?
3 Go to commentsAre the Brumbies playing the Blues twice in a row?
3 Go to commentsBig difference from the Saders. Forwards really muscled up and laid a solid platform. Scooter brought some steel and I liked the loosie combination. Newell has been rather disappointing this season but stepped up big time - happy also to see Franks dot down. He should do that more often! Reihana had a good game and there seems to be more flair and invention with him in the saddle. McNicoll plays well from the back and is reliable plus inventive when he joins the line. Keep it up chaps!
3 Go to comments🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
30 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
3 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusaders , you can keep going.
3 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
30 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
30 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
30 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
30 Go to comments