Springbok women targeting French World Cup scalp

The Springbok women are targeting a big upset in their opening match of the Rugby World Cup as they hunt a win over France at Eden Park in Auckland, New Zealand, on Saturday.

It is a massive game first up in the context of the team’s hopes of making the competition quarterfinals, as they look to make history with a first ever win over fourth ranked France.

The SA women have themselves risen to a high of 11^th in the world and go into the World Cup with plenty of confidence having won five of their six games so far this year

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That includes picking up a historic first ever Test match win on foreign soil when they beat Japan in July, while they took that momentum into a two Test home series against Spain and thumped them at Ellis Park and in Potchefstroom.

That was also the first time that they had beaten Spain, so they will take a lot of confidence from what has been a record breaking year so far.

Last year the Springbok women were comfortably beaten 46-3 by France on their European tour, but they will have taken a lot of learnings from that clash and are better prepared for the challenge this time round.

“Our objective from a first phase perspective is to see if we can get the ball and then to use the ball productively and hopefully put pressure on France, so that we can score some points,” explained Springbok women’s coach Stanley Raubenheimer.

“We don’t have any secrets or plans to match them up physically. It is just natural for us to play that type of game.

“It was vitally important for us to play against France on our end of year tour last year and we are expecting a tough battle from them. In saying that we know how to deal with it, and that experience against them has given us an opportunity.

Tough pool

With it an extremely tough pool, featuring the top ranked women’s rugby team in the world and defending champs, England, who have not been beaten since 2019, the French game is vitally important for the Springbok women’s hopes of qualification.

Their second match is against 21^st ranked Fiji, and they will be expected to come away from that match with a win, but with their final game against England, they will need to beat France in their opener if they want to progress.

“We want to go out there and give a good account of ourselves, especially in terms of our physicality. But we also want to show that we can be competitive and to do that we have to get the ball, keep it and put pressure on France,” said Raubenheimer.

“We are not going to go out there thinking that we have no chance because they are number four in the world. This is a World Cup, so we don’t worry about the world rankings and we will just go out there and give our best.”