Australia’s women booked their first ever semi-finals appearance at a Rugby World Cup with an emphatic 62-0 victory over South Africa at Surrey Sports Park in Guildford on Saturday.
The Wallaroos secured their necessary four-try bonus point within 30 minutes and piled on nine tries to give themselves the best chance of qualifying as the best performing runner-up across the tournaments three pools.
Centre Sharni Williams scored her second try of the match during the final play of the game, lifting Australia past the 56 points required to knock Canada out of the race to the last four on a superior for-and-against record.
Coach John Manenti and his squad then had a nervous wait on the outcome of the match between hosts England and the USA to ensure they would finish as the fourth seed and book a place in the WRWC semi-finals.
The Wallaroos will play England on Wednesday night at Twickenham Stoop.
New Zealand, chasing a fourth world title, demolished Wales 41-8 on Saturday and will play the other semi-final against France.
Manenti was pleased to see his squad continue to improve with every game.
“The important thing is that we learnt from our loss to New Zealand and we were able to make adjustments to our game,” Manenti said.
“We finished seventh at the last World Cup and it’s been a big goal of ours to lift Australia’s world ranking and we’re well on our way to achieving that.”
AngrySeahorse
Guest
Any money raised for womens/girls rugby clearly needs to go to the local/club level, anyone who knows anything about women/girls rugby will have that same answer. The interest is quite large at local level but without an exisiting club stucture for underage girls outside of school rugby or several grades at all age level - its hard to develop depth. Sports like soccer have had their local systems around for ages & womens/girls rugby really needs to create one themselves. Most girls/women play for the love of the game and the representative stuff usually comes later for those that want to aim for that. Sad to say it but I think our run will come to an end against England though I'm hoping for an upset. I'm tipping NZ to take it all out yet again.
Cattledog
Roar Guru
I watched some of the England / USA match after the Wallabies game and was quite impressed by the level of officiating. I think the ref was a young Kiwi girl and did an excellent job I thought. Clear, concise and most importantly, consistent. Funny, what we would like to see in all our refs!!
Sprigs
Guest
Fantastic result. Australian women have been excelling in so many sports recently, from surfing to soccer to netball. And how great it is now to read that the Wallaroos will be lifting their world ranking. I want to see more and more coverage of women's rugby, and I would like to see the big corporate sponsors ensure that this happens.