Julia Schell needed just 22 minutes to score a remarkable six tries as Canada launched their Women’s Rugby World Cup campaign with a 65-7 thrashing of Fiji in York on Saturday.
The fullback, who plays for London club Ealing Trailfinders in England’s elite Premiership Women’s Rugby, crossed six times from the 50th minute — including a four-minute hat-trick.
Schell’s haul was just two tries off the all-time record of eight, set by New Zealand’s Portia Woodman-Wickliffe against Hong Kong in 2017.
Victory meant Canada, second in the world rankings, started the tournament in style, with Schell revealing afterwards it was a supporter in the crowd at the York Community Stadium in northern England who had given her the inspiration for a stunning return, saying: “A guy over there told me he would give me $200 if I scored, so I need to go and speak to him.
“I think as a team we didn’t start as we wanted to, we had some calm chats at half-time and ramped it up.”
Yet Canada still opened the scoring after just five minutes as Sophie de Goede, the outstanding Saracens forward, marked her return to the world stage after missing last year’s Olympic Sevens with a severe knee injury, went in for a try off the back of a line-out.
Gillian Boag scored Canada’s second try from a rolling maul and even after Taylor Perry was sin-binned, they continued to dominate, with Caroline Crossley getting away for their third.
De Goede then produced a brilliant double miss-pass to put Sarries teammate Alysha Corrigan in for the bonus-point score, before a line-out steal on her own line kept Fiji scoreless at the break.
But the Pacific islanders scored the try of the match, with replacement Kolora Lomani finishing a length-of-the-field counter-attack after being put away by skipper Alfreda Fisher.
Canada, and Schell in particular, were sparked into life, with the full-back crossing three times in four minutes.
And it did not stop there, with Canada scoring two more tries as the second half wore on, either side of Fiji replacement Bulou Vasuturaga’s red card for a high tackle before Karen Paquin added an 11th Canadian try.
McGhie the hat-trick heroine as Scotland overwhelm Wales in Women’s Rugby World Cup
Francesca McGhie’s superb hat-trick helped Scotland launch their Women’s Rugby World Cup campaign with a convincing 38-8 bonus-point win over Wales in Salford on Saturday.
The Celtic rivals have enjoyed several close contests in the Women’s Six Nations in recent seasons, with the Scots 24-21 winners in this year’s edition.
But, despite reports of unrest in the Scotland camp regarding contract uncertainty after the end of the World Cup, there was no stopping the Dark Blues on Saturday.
They outscored Wales six tries to one, with Leia Brebner-Holden, Evie Gallagher and Emma Orr also going over the Welsh line as Scotland dominated in all departments.
Alex Callender’s try kept Wales in touch in the first half but Scotland surged clear after the break as they recorded a record 30-point winning margin over their old rivals.
Scotland are now well-placed to qualify out of Pool B for the quarter-finals.
Wales, by contrast, will likely have to cause a major shock by beating Canada, ranked second in the world, if they are to reach the knockout stages.
“We were ruthless all the way through, we were ruthless in attack,” Scotland coach Bryan Easson told the BBC. “We were pretty dangerous and defensively we made Wales look pretty ordinary.”
McGhie needed just 55 seconds to open the scoring as Wales were caught cold from kick-off and the wing scored again following Brebner-Holden’s try as Scotland led 17-8 at half-time.
The second half saw McGhie complete her hat-trick before Scotland pulled even further ahead.
“I’ve just said to the players that’s just not good enough,” said Wales boss Sean Lynn. “We said we wanted to be physical and Scotland, credit to them, bullied us off the park and beat us at the break-down.”
He added: “At World Cups there are upsets but we need to make sure we’re on song for Canada next week.”
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