Canada Beat England 31-22 in Ottawa as de Goede Scores Hat-trick
Canada beat England 31-22 in a women's WXV Global Series match in Ottawa, handing the Red Roses their first back-to-back defeats in a decade, according to The Guardian.
The match was played at TD Place Stadium on Friday 23 October, local time. WXV is the annual run of women's international tournaments that brings the world's strongest teams together in a single window, and this round was the fifth of the series.
Canada's captain, Sophie de Goede, was the standout. She scored a hat-trick of tries against England. She is also the reigning women's world player of the year, so the performance will have caught few people by surprise.
The first half was tight and see-sawing. England's Maddie Feaunati crossed in the seventh minute to open the scoring. Julie Omokhuale replied for Canada, and the hosts led 12-7 at half-time.
Rugby union is a game of contests for the ball. A rolling maul, where a group of players bind together and drive forward while carrying the ball, is one of the sport's most reliable ways to gain ground. England's Amy Cokayne scored from one, which showed the Red Roses still had a powerful forward pack. Canada, though, kept finding space on the edges and kept their nerve in the closing stages.
The loss was England's third in 74 matches, according to The Guardian. It is a small number on paper, but it stings more after a run of defeats. England had drawn 26-26 with Canada in Exeter in September, in front of a sold-out crowd of 14,000. That result gave Canada plenty of confidence heading into this rematch.
Canada also carried a second kind of memory into the game. They lost to England in the final of the 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup, so this win was a chance to answer that defeat on home soil.
Off the field, Canada's secretary of state for sport, Adam van Koeverden, announced new funding for Rugby Canada during the match. The money is intended to support the national game.
For England, the next task is the final WXV Global Series match, against the United States. A win there would not undo this result, but it would leave the Red Roses with a strong finish to the tournament.
Elsewhere in the series, Australia's Wallaroos claimed a third win, beating Scotland earlier in the round, according to World Rugby. The Wallaroos' run means they are in the mix as the tournament moves towards its close.
Canada's result is a reminder of how quickly fortunes can change in women's international rugby. England are still a formidable side, but Ottawa showed that no fixture is a formality.
