Chancellor looks to Wallaroos' World Cup advantages after epic draw

Australia will have to wait one more week for another opportunity to book their place in the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup quarter-finals, with Saturday’s 31-all draw keeping the USA in the playoff hunt – but Emily Chancellor believes the Wallaroos hold some advantages.

After opening their account at the World Cup with a record 73-nil win over Samoa last weekend, the Australians could’ve punched their ticket to the knockout rounds with another victory, but a familiar foe stood in the way.

With the USA suffering a 62-point defeat to England in the tournament opener, they had to avoid another loss to stay in the race for quarter-final qualification. This Test had been built up as practically a knockout match, and both the match and atmosphere lived up to the hype.

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Desiree Miller scored the opener in the sixth minute, but the match remained tense for the rest of the contest, with neither side running away with it. Australia took a hard-fought 14-5 lead into half-time, but the Americans outscored their Pac Four rivals 26-17 during the second term.

Eva Karpani crossed for a late try but no more points with score, with nothing splitting the teams in the end. With one round left to play before the quarters, the USA need to improve their points differential significantly with a bonus point win against Samoa.

As for the Wallaroos, they’ll take on England’s Red Roses in Brighton on Saturday. With the USA playing their match earlier that day, the Australians will know exactly what they need to qualify for the quarters when they take the field.

“It feels like we lost it. We had it in our hands multiple times through the game and momentum just didn’t stay on our side,” Chancellor told RugbyPass.

“It’s frustrating to feel like we let a team in because of our ill-discipline again, but ultimately we’re still completely in this competition.

“We have such ability when we play really well, you saw moments of it today, but we’ve just got to be able to put a bit more of a whole performance together so that when we play against England next week, we can do a number on them.

“[England are] going to be in a different position. They’re playing knowing that they’ve already qualified for the quarters, whereas we know we’re playing for more.

“We’ve potentially got a bit of a mental upper hand in terms of the desire and passion we’re gonna have to play with. We’ve also, I guess, got the advantage of knowing that USA are going to be playing before us so we’ll have a bit of a for and against idea of what we need to be doing to stay in the fight.”

After some light rain during the first half, conditions cleared up during the second, with the USA taking some control. Australia gave away a few penalties early in the half, and eventually something had to give, with the Women’s Eagles scoring two quick tries.

Fred Tafuna completed a double in the 50^th minute to give the USA the lead for the first time, but Australia regained their advantage through Miller a few minutes later. 18-year-old Caitlyn Halse also completed a double, which would’ve had Wallaroos fans daring to dream.

Chancellor had been replaced in the 51^st minute for Ashley Marsters, just as the Wallaroos were preparing for the restart after Tafuna’s second. The co-captain watched on from the sidelines as an all-time classic Rugby World Cup battle played out.

The USA made the most of Australia’s ill-discipline and played with momentum for most of the second half, which led to Erica Jarrell-Searcy’s try with 10 minutes left – with the successful conversion giving the Eagles a five-point advantage.

Karpani struck back a couple of minutes later for the Wallaroos, and there were some other twists and turns in the lead-up to the final whistle. After putting in a solid 50-minute shift, Chancellor was “so proud” of how the Wallaroos fought until the very end.

“You ride the emotions on the bench when you’re a bit helpless by that stage of how to get your team to do anything more than what they’re doing. You know how hard it is out there for them,” Chancellor reflected.

“It did kill me a little bit inside but in the same breath, I’m so proud of the how the girls still fought, stayed in it. There were so many moments where we could’ve dropped it completely but we really held on.

“A 31-all score is a pretty good game to be playing at a World Cup, and a draw is still not a loss.”