Women's Rugby World Cup

And so they put a lot of investment into this event at M&T Bank Stadium, and they believe it was all a very positive showing for the future.

You will get a lot of cities who will work to host these Rugby World Cups.

They'll be big events in the marketplace.

And so my takeaways today, number one, is there enough frustration with college sports that Congress might just raise their hands and say, "Enough," and pass the Protect College Sports Act? I don't believe so, but that is what the advocates are potentially hoping for, a big week for that bill on Capitol Hill.

Scotland takes on Canada in Edinburgh, and France, uh, are to take on New Zealand in Lyon.

Uh, but going through them one at a time, uh, in the north of England, England again, uh, you know, following the pattern they did through the 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup where they started in the north and then they worked their way through the country and built that momentum towards Twickenham.

Um, they're 38 in a row, uh, coming up against Australia.

Uh, defending world champions, uh, I think it's five consecutive Grand Slams.

So it'll be a good game for them to benchmark themselves.

So the third of the, uh, matches to kick off the WXV is really, you know, the, the match of the round.

Uh, France against New Zealand, they last played each other in the third/fourth playoff at the 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup.

The New Zealand team was successful, 42 points to 26.

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I think as a stand-alone

... athletics.

massive one.

And when you look at how our Springbok women have grown from strength to strength, they were knocked out in the quarterfinals last year at the Women's Rugby World Cup.

This is a massive encounter.

So, we've brought in the big guns, a superstar for the Bach woman, Libby Janse van Rensburg.

Well, isn't that wonderful? For the game and for the women's sport.

Well, anyone who watched the Women's Rugby World Cup last year in 2025, if you like rugby, it was outstanding.

Pretty much every game was outstanding.

And I love the South Africans in the 2025 World Cup because you can see they haven't had the development, they haven't had the investment, but, gee, they had the potential and they've got the size and they've got all of those South African characteristics that you expect in the team.

But the real thing here is they're taking on a South African side that have been improving quite regularly.

You may remember at the last Women's Rugby World Cup, they were a very strong side to meet the All Blacks.

Love a good rolling more.

We'll throw everybody in that team behind it too.

New Zealand won the Pacific Four comfortably and have beaten Australia once more.

At the start of the year, or in July, sorry, South Africa went one for one against the USA this one has a bit of extra juice because if you remember back to last year's Women's Rugby World Cup it was New Zealand taking on South Africa in the quarter final and the South African women absolutely dominated the Black Ferns in the first half especially in the forwards it was 10 all at half time before New Zealand got into gear in the second half winning 46 points to 17 One more international women's rugby game for the weekend.

It is Japan taking on Fiji.

This Fijian squad are not doing too flash this year.

But here's a fun fact.

During last year's Women's Rugby World Cup, 56% of all coverage about rugby was about men.

So it reflects a whole lot of what is actually happening in women's sport.

And obviously they talk about the commercial aspects of women, that they don't deserve funding, that they're not as good.