Canada’s Women Rugby 7s, Forced to Defeat Australia & Brazil in Cape Town Series

Summary:

• Canada’s women’s rugby sevens team will face a difficult draw in Pool A at the Cape Town Series. 
• The Canadians must overtake Australia and Brazil to advance to the semifinals.
• The final eight teams will reunite for the World Championship on May 3-4 in Carson, California. 

Canada’s women’s rugby sevens team is looking at a tough road ahead in Pool A at this weekend’s Cape Town Sevens. 

The Canadians will square off against Australia and Brazil amid a revamped tournament structure that is expected to add another layer of difficulty to the original challenge.

The Cape Town event is the second of seven stops in the 2025 HSBC SVNS season.

Both Victories Are a Must  

Australia’s women are entering the competition in dominant form, having secured their fifth consecutive Dubai Sevens title last weekend with a nail-biting 28-24 win over New Zealand in the final. 

Canada, on the other hand, placed eighth after a narrow 24-22 loss to Japan in the seventh-place match. 

Meanwhile, Brazil finished ninth, suffering a 38-12 defeat to Canada during pool play.

On the men’s side, Fiji claimed victory in Dubai, triumphing 19-5 over Spain in the Spaniards’ historic first appearance in a cup final.

This year’s Cape Town format splits the 12 men’s and women’s teams into four pools of three, with only the pool winners advancing to the semifinals. 

This setup translates to Canada being forced to outperform both Brazil and the Australian squad that shut them out 39-0 in Dubai. 

Pool allocations were determined by rankings from the season opener.

Overview of the Pools

The women’s competition will feature New Zealand, Japan, and China as part of Pool B. Pool C will host France, Ireland, and Spain while Britain, the U.S., and Fiji will be part of Pool D. 

On the men’s side, Pool A will include Fiji, Britain, and Uruguay. Pool B will be hosting Spain, Australia, and Kenya while Pool C will feature Argentina, South Africa, and Ireland. 

Finally, Pool D will reunite the men’s teams from New Zealand, France, and the U.S.

After Cape Town, the series will head to Perth between January 24-26, followed by Vancouver on February 21-23, Hong Kong on March 28-30, and Singapore on April 5-6. 

The World Championship will take place on May 3-4 in Carson, California. The top eight teams from each division will fight hard for the championship while the bottom four will enter a promotion-relegation playoff alongside top Challenger Series teams.

The Canadian men’s team, that was relegated in June following a decade spent on the core circuit, recently earned a Challenger Series spot by winning the Rugby Americas North Sevens in Trinidad. 

The squad previously made history in 2017 by capturing their first trophy in Singapore and finished eighth at the Tokyo Olympics.