CANADA have made the Women’s Rugby World Cup final with an underfunded team made up of part-time firefighters and engineers.
The Canadian players are just 80 minutes of rugby away from glory and they’ve done it thanks to an incredible work ethic and some heartwarming crowdfunding.
Canada’s women’s rugby team raised $1m CAD in a bid to help them compete at the World Cup[/caption]
They take on England on Saturday and have the tough task of having to topple the Red Roses at Twickenham, in front of what is effectively a home crowd.
But that isn’t the only disadvantage that has been handed to Canada throughout their journey to the final.
Most notably is a serious lack of financial backing, so much so that the second seed side are not even a fully professional outfit.
Over 50 per cent of the 32-player squad play professionally at club level in England, France and New Zealand.
While six players have come from the North American nation’s sevens team that earned silver medals at the Paris Olympics.
But other players involved in the tournament include two firefighters, an engineer and a school coach
By comparison, England’s squad is made entirely of pro players and the RFU’s revenue is reportedly 20 TIMES more than Canada’s.
That’s the sort of financial disparity that saw Rugby Canada launch their ‘Mission: Win Rugby World Cup’ fundraiser, a campaign that set out to raise $1MILLION CAD (£535,355).
Canada Head Coach Kevin Rouet has praised his team’s work ethic[/caption]
Without that money Canada may not have been able to organise their training camps in California, Ontario and Belfast, as well as warm-up Tests in South Africa and Ireland.
Head coach Kevin Rouet has praised his team for their work ethic in spite of the financial shortcomings.
He said: “I’m French so when I moved to Canada I can see a big difference in terms of the willingness to work very hard and not complain which I think represents Canada rugby,” he said.
“They know we aren’t the most well-resourced team but they move on very quickly and work hard on the field.”
While captain Alex Tessier has described it as “hard” but “something that is out of our control.”
What has been in their control is their superb performances on the pitch, winning every single match they’ve played and averaging an astonishing 45.4 points scored per game.
They beat reigning champions New Zealand 34-19 in their semi-final and have also got the better of Australia, Scotland, Fiji and Wales.
Now they take on England, who have remarkably bettered Canada’s scoring average with 56.6 points per game – in no small part thanks to their 92-3 Pool A thumping of Samoa.
Canada know that playing England at Twickenham will be no easy task and have even been training with headphones and speakers to prepare for the noise from the 82,000 fans expected to descend upon the Allianz Stadium.
It was the Red Roses that ended Canada’s dream at the 2021 World Cup, beating them 26-19 in the semi-final in Auckland.
After that defeat then-captain of Canada Sophie de Goede said: “There was no difference in talent out there today.
“Just imagine what we can do with more games and more resources.”
Thanks to that incredible fundraising, rugby fans are going to find out exactly what that is like this Saturday.
England have been dominant during the tournament[/caption]
