Bledisloe Cup 2026, Match 2. Canada (W) v England.

 

Bledisloe Cup, Match Two

The Build Up

Last week, the All Blacks had a quiet first half, but then smashed the Wallabies off the park in the second, largely on the back of a great kicking game and a better kick chase that let them smash into the Wobs' 22 no less than 15 times compared to their opponents 6 entries. Both teams converted about half their chances into tries, but if you’re getting that many more chances, courtesy of reliably marching up the pitch on your kicking game, everything else becomes easier. 

For this week, both teams made a few changes, mostly down to injuries. All but one of those were known by Monday; the All Blacks lost Jordie Barrett on the morning of the match, meaning they had to change five players. I think the Wallabies changed two, definitely Meredith was in for Donaldson, and I think one in the forwards too.

The Match

This game, loosely speaking, started like the last one finished. The All Blacks were an irresistible wave, running in six tries to one before halftime. They lost the second half by two tries to one. The only reason they didn’t put 50 points up again was that last week DMac could barely miss, this week he couldn’t buy a conversion. 

Whilst that’s a loosely true summary, it misses some important details. The AB kicking game had changed. Now, some of that might have been the loss of both Carter and Jordie, although my memory suggests that Morby is solid under the high ball. But Tavatavnawai, in for Barrett (and who had a solid game), looks much more like a crash ball centre, and both shorter and slower than Jordie, far less suited to the kick chase. Chicken or egg? I don’t know, but they kicked longer, recovered less, but harried the receivers effectively and generally won the kicking battles, just in a different way. Before we laud the AB too much, the Wallabies are not great at kick chases nor at receiving kicks, so beating them up is a tick, but not the greatest achievement.

The stats say that the tackle completion rates were basically the same. This might be the same, but if you don’t touch them, it doesn’t count as a missed tackle - it feels like that’s inflating the quality of the Wallabies' defence. Line breaks were also essentially equal, which might be right, but the Wallabies' line breaks basically amounted to nothing, the All Blacks led to tries. Those are both exaggerations, but they accurately reflect the feeling of the match. Going back to my favourite pair of stats, entries into the 22 were, again, basically equal, eight for the Aussies, nine for the Kiwis, unlike last week, but their points per entry were dramatically different, 2.8 for the G&G and 4.7 for the All Blacks. The first number is low, the second is high, somewhere around 3.0-3.5 is what you expect. This time, red zone efficiency was hugely different.

The Wallabies manufactured one more entry than last week, the Kiwis a whopping six fewer. Given they replaced Jordie Barrett shortly before the match, then Tupea after one minute to an HIA and had a completely rejigged midfield for essentially the whole match, and still scored seven tries it’s hard to be too critical. 

Whilst I’m sure the coaches will find things to criticise in the AB performance, particularly the drop-off in the second half, the list of problems for Kiss and the Wallabies is long. They passed to no one, usually touch or the ground that was then hacked on by an All Black, once straight to Beaudy who gratefully ran about 70 m to score his second try. They also knocked on quite often. One very positive thing for the AB, thanks to an injury after the benches were emptied and then a yellow card, they played the last seven minutes or so with only 13 players. And whilst they couldn’t score, they initially just sucked up the Wallabies' pressure, then forced a turnover and controlled it for the final few minutes before kicking the ball into touch. They looked in control down two players. That’s worrying for every Australian fan. 

Looking ahead

Everyone has a couple of weeks to recover, travel and plan. Then both these sides face, in some order, England, Wales and Scotland in the next three rounds of the Nations Championship before finals weekend. 

We’ve seen New Zealand have taken lessons from the RGR matches and they’re both learning what works for them and integrating them into a coherent whole that works for their team. This wasn’t the case under Razor, they weren’t doing much that was different, but they weren’t happy about it. Kiss has been shown what doesn’t work and now he needs to show that he can’t get the squad to improve. 

WXV - Canada v England

The Build Up

About a month ago these two teams met in England and the Canadians ended the Red Roses' winning streak that stretched all the way back to their defeat at the hands of the Black Ferns in the RWC final in Auckland four years ago. England looked shaky against the Black Ferns in the following match but snuck a win, somehow, home field advantage coming through for them in the final play, and will be looking to put two poor performances behind them with an emphatic victory. On the other side of the coin, Canada don’t believe it was a fluke and think that, at home, they have the measure of the English. 

The Match

Whilst I always try and resist comparisons to the men’s game - although the laws are the same and there are parts that are necessarily similar, a scrum is a scrum - the tactics are generally different. As one example, in women’s rugby props are major ball carriers and typically rack up major metres. In the men’s game it’s not uncommon for a prop to not touch the ball all match, and they’re typically used for a low number of carries for low metres. I can't remember exactly who off the top of my head, but in this year's M6N one of the props won POTM without a single touch of the ball! As fans, we celebrate the exceptions to that rule, but we remember because they’re rare. In women’s rugby tries like, for example that Rhys Carré try, don’t occur in every game, but it’s probably fair to say you see one most weekends. 

So when I was watching this and my mind kept leaping back to the recent RGR series I was more than a little surprised. But it did. In that series, and this match, we had two big, physical teams smashing into each other, getting up, dusting themselves off and doing it again. There were finesse and tactics as well, creating and exploiting space, counter-attacks off poor kicks and turnovers, but those were there in the RGR games too. This match had a level of physicality from both teams that I haven’t really seen before in women’s rugby, and that, currently, only the Bokke, AB and Les Bleus can consistently bring in the men’s game. Arguably Les Bleues are starting to develop it in the women’s game too, but it’s not there yet. 

Rugby has some hostile home crowds. The Shed, at Gloucester, is probably one of the most infamous in domestic competition. Cardiff Arms Park was the most hostile in test rugby, the architects for the Principality Stadium went and observed some matches and incorporated what they could into the design of the Principality to keep that. I think that, at least when Wales is playing well, the Principality is still right up there. Loftus has to be there too. BMO Stadium is a new entry on the list. If there were any English fans in the crowd, they were drowned out by the Canucks who had forgotten to say “sorry” and stay polite, they were raucous, loud and opinionated. Nearly as one-eyed as a Gloucester fan too. And it was wonderful - even the English journalists agreed it was fantastic to see tribal fans like this, filling the stadium and making a tremendous atmosphere. 

The match itself was back and forth, a total of 33 entries into the 22, 20 of them for England, but defences and mistakes stayed on top, both teams lost the ball 15 times! The difference was that Canada were a little more efficient, scoring 1.8 points per entry, whilst keeping England to 1.1. And thus they went one step further than last month, stealing a win with a couple of minutes to go. All of the rugby world, outside England, celebrated and women’s rugby was the lead item on the news!

Looking Ahead

There is a rematch. England will be really up for revenge! We have to ask whether Canada can back this up. "Beat England" has been a big target for them for a while. Now they've achieved it, there's almost certainly going to be an emotional drop. Can the players get themselves up to do it again?