Friday night’s 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup semi-final encounter between Canada and New Zealand is set to be a colossal clash.
It is the perfect curtain raiser for the weekend that will decide the two finalists that will contend for silverware on Saturday 27 September at Twickenham Stadium. And in the North Americans and Black Ferns, the world will get to see the second and third-ranked teams in women’s rugby go toe-to-toe.
Over the past three years Kévin Rouet, Canada’s head coach, and Allan Bunting, New Zealand’s Director of Performance, have seen their teams win a clash each and draw once as regular opponents in the Pacific Four Series.
This included Canada’s first-ever win against the six-time World Cup champions in 2024 which helped the Canucks climb to second in the World Rugby rankings.
Recent history does only tell part of a story. The Black Ferns have only ever lost one World Cup semi-final before at the first-ever edition of the tournament in 1991.
After that third place finish over three decades ago, the women in Black have been world champions six times and had their worst World Cup campaign 11 years ago in France when they finished fifth.
“It’s positive that it’s not, ‘we’ve never beaten them before’,” Sophie de Goede said on Saturday.
“We have one win under our belt. I think you still look at history and it probably favours the Black Ferns. Well, definitely favours the Black Ferns.
“They’ve been incredible. They’re always incredible at World Cups. They always perform on the big stages. I think we won’t be looking too far into the past and we’ll just be focusing on Friday and putting in our performance.”
Canada come into Friday night’s game fresh from beating Australia 46-5 in the quarter-finals, while the Black Ferns had to rely on a strong second half showing to overcome a stern South Africa challenge at Sandy Park.
Just to much as Canada’s top player may not want to consult the form book, here is a look anyway…