Canada Women Win Pacific Four With Historic Win over New Zealand
Canada Women Win Pacific Four With Historic Win over New Zealand
Canada has won the Pacific Four women's international series after, for the first time ever, beating New Zealand Saturday in Christchurch, NZ.
On a night when Tyson Beukeboom earned her 68th cap, a Canadian women's team record, the Canadians came back from A 14-3 deficit to win 22-19. Fancy Bermudez, McKinley Hunt, and Alexandira Tessier all scored tries for Canada, with Sophie de Goede adding a penalty and two conversions.
“I still don’t have words for it. It hasn’t sunk in yet. We’ve hit so many milestones tonight,” said Beukeboom. “We knew we could do it. We just had to go out on the field and put the game down, and we did, and I think proud is probably the best word at the moment. It was so much fun to be out there tonight.”
“Being calm and being cool, that’s been something we’ve been talking about all week,” said de Goede. “We knew we were putting a lot of pressure on them defensively and so that was the big moment for us was to just keep up the defensive effort. I think it was really important for us to keep them out right before half-time.”
The result means Canada is 3-0 and wins the Pacific Four. The result is also good news for the USA. With New Zealand being now 1-1, they will have to win or at least tie Australia this coming weekend in order to finish the series with a winning record.
Now we know what it will take for the USA will need to have happen in order to qualify for the WXV1 Series. New Zealand, by virtue of getting a close-loss bonus point, will make it, but Australia, currently 0-2, will need to win. A tie, even with a bonus point, won't do the job. But Australia can overtake the USA with a bonus-point win.
Pacific Four 2024 | W | L | T | PF | PA | PD | BT | BL | Pts |
Canada | 3 | 0 | 0 | 105 | 40 | 65 | 2 | 0 | 14 |
New Zealand | 1 | 1 | 0 | 76 | 27 | 49 | 1 | 1 | 6 |
USA | 1 | 2 | 0 | 44 | 132 | -88 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
Australia | 0 | 2 | 0 | 39 | 65 | -26 | 1 | 0 | 1 |