Springbok Women target maiden playoff berth at Women's Rugby World Cup

The Springbok Women plan to ride the momentum from their recent top performances into the Women’s Rugby World Cup, which starts next weekend in England.

The South Africans will take on Brazil in their opening match on Sunday, 24 August, coming off the high of beating a Black Ferns XV in their second match at Athlone Stadium.

The Bok Women are currently in camp in Johannesburg before they jet off to the United Kingdom. In Group A, they will also face Italy and France.

The Bok Women have had four tough matches — two against second-ranked Canada and two against the Black Ferns XV — over the past month and a half in preparation for the World Cup.

The Tests against Canada were rather one-sided but gave the Boks a clear idea of what needed improvement ahead of the global showpiece. However, they performed much better against the New Zealanders, who brought a second-string team to Cape Town to take on the South Africans.

After narrowly going down 34-26 in the first match, the Bok Women powered to a 41-24 victory in the second, which assistant coach Laurian Johannes-Haupt says is exactly the tonic they needed ahead of the World Cup.

“The momentum we built in the matches we played was great for what we wanted to achieve. The win in the final match made it even more special because we fine-tuned our game and then reaped the benefits of it,” said Johannes-Haupt.

“The girls are heading into the World Cup with a lot of confidence, knowing who we want to be and where we are heading as a team.

“We got to play against strong opposition, and that ultimately just helped us lift our game. We wanted to tweak a few things, went through our processes, and the girls executed wel — especially at the end.”

The Bok Women assembled in Johannesburg after a short break to put the final touches on their World Cup preparation.

They aim to hit the ground running against Brazil and secure their first-ever win at the tournament. A victory over Italy could then put them in contention for a place in the playoffs ahead of a tough final pool match against France.

It will certainly help that 20 members of the World Cup squad have previous tournament experience. But this team has also come a long way from being the cannon fodder it once was.

“We’re really happy to have our final prep here in Johannesburg, opening up the lungs for the girls to get back into it before heading to the World Cup,” said Johannes-Haupt.

“We have our eyes on all the teams we’ll face at the World Cup, but we really just want to focus on ourselves and play our game. We want to show what we’re good at and carry that into the first game against Brazil.

“We’ll take it one game at a time, and then focus on the next. Ultimately, we want to make the playoffs — so to do that, we need to win the first two games and give ourselves a nice, smooth ride into the knockouts.”