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Wallaroos left feeling 'mixed emotions' after pushing Red Roses to the limit
By Joe Harvey at Brighton & Hove Albion Stadium, Brighton & Hove
There were varied feelings in the Wallaroos changing room after their 47-4 loss to England’s Red Roses in their final Pool A game.
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On one hand the Australians had lost a game heavily to the tournament favourites, but on the other Jo Yapp’s side enjoyed a dominant opening 30 minutes against the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup hosts and secured a quarter-final clash with Canada.
“There’s definitely mixed emotions in the changing rooms,” Australia captain, Siokapesi Palu, said.
“We can take positives and I think we probably shocked ourselves knowing that we can compete and that 30 minutes showed that.
“But I guess, disappointment is just knowing that we need a gull 80 minute performance in a World Cup. It’s do or die and you’ve got to put everything out there.”
At full-time on the south coast Yapp was held aloft by her team. Not in recognition of their achievement, but in celebration of her birthday.
Back in the confines of a press conference Palu joked that “there will be cake” to celebrate the 70-cap England international later that night.
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There is a bittersweet feeling to all of the Wallaroos efforts in England as Yapp’s tenure of the side draws to a close. During her time as the nation’s first full-time women’s head coach Yapp has seen peaks and troughs in the team’s development.
Saturday afternoon’s kick-based approach asked questions of England. Ellie Kildunne, prior to her removal from the contest with symptoms of concussion, made four individual errors as the ball rained down from the pale blue sky.
Forcing those uncharacteristic mistakes was all part of Yapp’s plan and Adiana Talakai’s sixth minute score was the Wallaroos’ reward, before her side fell away as the game wore on.
“The scoreline blew out a bit in that second half,” Yapp said. “The first half we were really in the game and were really competitive.
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“We were executing that we wanted to, but we knew England were going to come out hard in the second half and we started to lose a couple of our launch plays, which put ourselves under pressure a bit.”
Next up for the Wallaroos are Canada. Regular opponents in the Pacific Four Series, Australia have never beaten their North American opponents in seven meetings and will have the memory of their 45-7 drubbing in Brisbane ringing in their ears.
That day Kévin Rouet’s Canadians found it easy to breakdown Australia’s defence and saw seven different try scorers cross the whitewash at Lang Park.
In short, Canada made it look easy. Much the same can be said for how the Maple Leafs have acquitted themselves at the World Cup as they topped Pool B with a series of dominant wins over Fiji, Wales and Scotland.
But with over three months distance between themselves and that result, as well as Saturday’s promise against the Red Roses, there could be a renewed confidence.
“We definitely want to make sure that we start well,” Yapp said. “I watched some of the Scotland-Canada game, I think Scotland performed really well against them today and took some really good opportunities against them. We’ll preview that, look at how we can attack for next week.”