'We need to be patient': Canada adopt World Cup approach for WXV

Canada head coach Kévin Rouet has told his squad to treat the WXV Global Series like a Women’s Rugby World Cup.

This weekend, Canada will start their WXV Global Series campaign against Scotland in Edinburgh, before taking on England in a repeat of the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 final and then France to close out September.

In October, Canada will host England in Toronto and Ottawa to conclude their five-match run of Test matches.

Playing some of the sternest opponents in the world of women’s Test match rugby, Canada’s head coach wants his players to learn from two months of touring and high-quality match minutes.

“The tour looks like a World Cup,” Rouet said. “The way I presented [it] to the girls is, the first three games are pool games, and the game in Canada will be our semi-final and final.

“We know we had less preparation than any team in August, we know we need to be patient. We haven’t had a lot of time together. We have to play Scotland, and England and France.

“We have to accept that we are going to keep building in those games and put more pressure on ourselves when we are back home in Canada, in front of our fans – making sure we are sharp and accurate on details.

“That’s the process at the moment. It’s good building for us. Being together for six, seven weeks, that is what we miss sometimes. It is good to see the building.”

So far in 2026, Rouet has given seven players their Canada debuts. This weekend that tally will become 10 when two-time Olympic medallist Charity Williams, Savannah Bauder and Sophie McDonald get game time on Saturday.

In their only tournament this year, Canada placed second in the Pacific Four Series as the Black Ferns topped the four-team competition. As a result of Canada’s 36-14 loss to Whitney Hansen’s team in April, New Zealand are currently the third-ranked team in the World Rugby rankings.

Still early on in their development at the start of a Women’s Rugby World Cup cycle, there is a distinct feeling that Canada are just starting to grow.

Rouet will come face-to-face with a former assistant coach on Saturday afternoon in Scotland’s capital. For 13 months Dave Butcher served as an assistant coach for the Frenchman on the way to a Women’s Rugby World Cup final. Now he is interim head coach of Scotland’s women.

It has been a rapid rise up the ranks for Butcher. He only joined Scottish Rugby in March and has temporarily taken top job after Sione Fukofuka’s exit as head coach after eight months at the helm. Eight months that only yielded a fifth-place finish in the 2026 Guinness Women’s Six Nations.

Coming up against former colleagues is something that Rouet has become accustomed to in recent months, and knows exactly what could be in Butcher’s future too.

“You know what, it has happened to me this year with Jack Hanratty [ex-Canada Women’s Sevens head coach] with the USA,” Rouet grinned. “And we are going to play France, who are coached by François Ratier [ex-Canada women head coach].

“I’m excited for Dave. It’s a great opportunity. I know it is not easy coming in and getting the interim job. I joked with him, I said it happened to me. I got the interim job and got promoted to head coach. You never know what could happen.”

Since Butcher’s appointment as interim head coach of Scotland, his squad have alluded to a new, more fast-paced style of rugby.

Upon announcing his squad for Saturday, Butcher stated:

“We want to play a multi-phase game that’s really, really fast and enjoyable for the players to play and the people to watch. But we also want to have that real hard edge that Scotland teams have.”

That attacking flair should come as little surprise given Butcher’s experience with Canada.

Across two spells with Canada, the team won a Pacific Four Series title in 2024 and finished as runner-up at Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025. That included a first-ever win against the Black Ferns, delivered with a style of rugby that left the crowd breathless.

Ahead of this weekend’s game, Butcher said his team had “no fear” before facing Canada at Edinburgh’s Hive Stadium.

The notion of seeing fiery attack versus fiery attack on Saturday afternoon is certainly an intriguing one. Saturday will be the first chance to see Scotland’s new style of play in action, prompting Canada’s preparations to remain largely internal.

“You don’t really know what’s going to happen because it is a short turnaround,” Tessier said. “Equally, if they start to play similarly to us, we know it, because we play against each other all the time.

“We’ll be ready for that. We almost have to focus a bit more on ourselves because we don’t exactly know what they’re going to do. You don’t want to waste your time on something that might be completely different on Saturday.”