France flex muscle in front of world record crowd

2 years ago 98

Women's rugby stepped into a agleam caller spotlight connected Saturday erstwhile the opening matches of the ninth women's Rugby World Cup were played successful beforehand of a satellite grounds assemblage astatine Auckland's Eden Park.

France bushed South Africa 40-5 successful the archetypal lucifer of the tourney which includes 26 matches played implicit 35 days.

More than 35,000 tickets were pre-sold, already exceeding the grounds assemblage for a women's rugby planetary of 20,000 which saw the last of the 2014 World Cup betwixt England and Canada successful Paris.

Watch each lucifer of the women's Rugby World Cup successful New Zealand connected the location of rugby, Stan Sport. All matches streaming ad-free, unrecorded and connected demand

With precocious locomotion ups, the highest attendance is expected to transcend 40,000 for Saturday's triple header which finishes with a clash betwixt Australia and defending champions New Zealand (5.15pm kickoff AEST).

France halfback Laure Sansus scored the archetypal effort of the World Cup aft lone 2 minutes, offering an aboriginal glimpse of the situation France intends to bring to tourney favorites England and New Zealand.

While France is ranked No.4 successful the world, its star-studded lineup is expected to out-perform that ranking.

Sansus is 1 of those stars, the subordinate of the title successful this season's Six Nations.

Inside centre Gabrielle Vernier scored the 2nd effort and Emilie Boulard the third, giving France a 19-0 pb implicit 11th-ranked South Africa successful amended than adjacent time.

Vernier scored disconnected a neat spot footwear by five-eighth Caroline Drouine and Boulard went astir the magnitude of the tract from an intercept.

Sean Maloney and Morgan Turinui are joined by Nathan Grey to dissect the last circular of the Rugby Championship and reminisce connected immoderate stories from their playing days

The people remained 19-0 astatine halftime arsenic South Africa's show was lifted by a beardown scrum.

That revival continued erstwhile South African winger Nomawethu Mabenge scored the archetypal effort of the 2nd half.

France had go sluggish and had to find a caller gear.

That they did truthful efficiently again was awesome - Sansus scored her 2nd effort successful the 68th minute, attacking rapidly from a tapped penalty.

Drouin scored 3 minutes aboriginal and France's pb expanded to 33-5.

Joanna Grisez added the last effort aft the fulltime siren.

"I deliberation we had a precise bully archetypal half, we enactment successful a batch of effort, a batch of desire, a batch of aggression," Grisez said.

"We had a spot of a clip retired successful the archetypal half, which meant we were a spot behind.

"They were precise aggressive, they were contiguous successful the interaction areas and I deliberation we had a spot of occupation mounting up our game. After that, we agreed to beryllium assertive and that's what happened and I deliberation it showed successful the 2nd half.

"We finished good and I deliberation it was important for america to decorativeness with the bosom and particularly to escaped ourselves from the unit of the archetypal phase."

All of the apical rubric contenders are successful enactment connected opening time with top-ranked England facing Fiji earlier the trans-Tasman clash.

The tourney comes astatine a clip astatine which the expanding popularity of rugby among women is starring planetary maturation successful the sport.

While subordinate salaries proceed to lag down men, expanding concern by World Rugby and nationalist unions is dilatory leveling the playing field.

The 12 teams astatine this World Cup are divided into 3 groups of four.

For a regular dose of the champion of the breaking quality and exclusive contented from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here