Rouet says Canada heading in 'right direction' after WXV victory over France

By Ben Hart, Sportsbeat

The Maple Leafs are targeting a first World Cup victory next year and after beating New Zealand in May, Rouet’s side kicked off their WXV 1 campaign with a resounding victory over another potential challenger.

Fancy Bermudez and Laetitia Royer each scored a pair of tries, while Paige Farries, Emily Tuttosi and Asia Hogan-Rochester all contributed one apiece in Vancouver.

“I think we are going in the right direction,” said head coach Rouet.

“We beat New Zealand for the first time and now we beat France with consistency. We know England are still number one in the world so we have to beat them at some point.

“We talk about taking game after game and we are not even focused on winning because the most important thing is the work out.

“We are only going to have plenty of games before the World Cup and it's a short turnaround to Ireland so let’s do a good performance there and see what we can do after against England, so there are lots of chances to refine our game and be more relaxed.”

Next up for Rouet’s charges is a clash with Ireland, who also have their tails up after an extraordinary 29-27 victory over defending World Cup champions New Zealand.

“We don’t play Ireland a lot. We don’t know them and they don’t know us so I think it’s important to respect that,” said Rouet.

“We’ll have plenty of time to talk about England and we don’t want to talk too early about England because a lot of the girls play in England so sometimes it can play in their heads. We’ll see where we are after Ireland to discuss if we can win the WXV.”

Canada coped well with the absence of captain Sophie de Goede as she continues her recovery from a torn anterior cruciate ligament, with second row Tyson Beukeboom skippering the side with aplomb.

Beukeboom, the most capped player in Canada’s starting XV, believes the side are yet to play to their full potential.

“I think we have a couple things to work on for defence,” she said.

“They caught us a couple of times sleeping, it’s just about keeping the pedal on for 80 minutes and I think we maybe got a little complacent and they took advantage of that. We also put a bit of pressure on ourselves and made some odd mistakes.

“The game was really exciting, moving fast and we were having fun and sometimes we just got a little bit ahead of ourselves and staying calm even in the chaos is something we want to push.

“We’re here to build. If we win WXV 1, amazing, if we don’t but we’re still building, that’s the goal. Our goal is to win the World Cup so we're building to that point now and we’re going to build through that.”