HIGH ACHIEVERS: Canadian women’s rugby team striving for first World Cup title

By Martin Cleary

Look out world, the Canadian women’s rugby team is on a two-part mission, seeking gold and black at the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 in England.

As the No. 2-ranked team on the globe, the 32-player Canadian squad is aiming to seize the sterling silver and 24-carat, gold-plated World Rugby trophy for the first time in its history Sept. 27 in Twickenham Stadium.

As the business brains behind the scenes, Rugby Canada also is in attack mode as it works to reach the finish line of its Mission: Win the Rugby World Cup 2025 fundraising campaign. The goal is $1 million. These additional funds would allow the national association to cover all its project bills and maybe creep into the black.

For the past seven months, Rugby Canada has been working diligently with the Canadian rugby community to raise $1 million and give the national women’s team every possible opportunity to become the best in the world.

As of this week, Rugby Canada had reached 88 per cent of its Mission goal and CEO Nathan Bombrys is confident program supporters can help the team achieve the million-dollar mark or more in the next two months.

Everyone seems to be involved from the casual fan donating $20, to the Barrhaven Scottish Rugby Football Club raising $4,000, to the Canadian Rugby Foundation’s Monty Heald Fund contributing $150,000.

“I’m determined to make it. I think the rugby community will get behind this important and cool story,” Bombrys said in a phone interview, following a special event Tuesday at the National Gallery of Canada. “I’m pushing the envelope, but I believe the support will come in.

“We have great young people playing and they don’t get enough opportunities and enough resources. We looked at the World Cup and sat down with the coaches. We asked what’s the plan to win? He (head coach Kevin Rouet) gave us his plan. He needed 80 days (for the players to be) together.

“He priced it at $3.6 million. I looked at our budget and we could offer $2.6 million. We had a gap … a $1-million gap. I said let’s try, let’s try to fill it. Let’s make it a mission and send the team prepared.

“Then, I can pay off the credit card.”

The final step of that preparation comes Friday on the TD Place field, when Canada will play host to the United States in a rivalry match. Two years ago, Canada played the U.S. before more than a record 10,000 fans at Lansdowne Park.

On May 2, the Canadian team defeated the Americans 26-14 for the 10th consecutive time in a packed CPKC Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. The crowd of 10,500 was a North American record to watch a women’s rugby match.

While England, New Zealand and Scotland have budgets for their women’s rugby squads that are more than five times Canada’s, Bombrys said it’s important for the national team to be given everything it needs to make the next step a golden one.

Canada has only won one medal at the Women’s Rugby World Cup and that came with a silver in France in 2014. On four other occasions, Canada has played for the bronze medal, but settled for fourth place in 2021, 2006, 2002 and 1998.

By filling that $1-million gap, players will benefit from that top-up to the national women’s team budget.

“That money buys time together to train at camps with good coaches,” Bombrys added. “It’s expensive for 35 to 40 Canadians to fly in from all parts of Canada (and around the world). It adds up. But it buys time.”

The $3.6-million national women’s rugby budget covers flights, accommodation, food and training camps as well as staff costs.

“We do pay the players a modest stipend. They don’t do it for the money, but for the love of each other, the game and the country,” Bombrys said.

Players on the Canadian women’s 15s team do not receive any federal government carding money, because the 15s discipline isn’t an Olympic sport. The government supports athletes in the rugby 7s program through the Athlete Assistance Program because it’s on the Olympic schedule.

Rugby Canada, however, helps the players on the national 15s team with monthly payments of $2,000.

Seven players from the national women’s 7s team, which won the silver medal at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, have shifted to the 15s squad for the World Cup – Caroline Crossley, Fancy Bermudez, Florence Symonds, Olivia Apps, Asia Hogan-Rochester, Alysha Corrigan and Taylor Perry.

The Canadian roster for the 2025 World Cup also will include forward Pamphinette Buisa of Gatineau and the Ottawa Irish, and University of Ottawa grad Claire Gallagher, a back from Caledon, ON. This will be Gallagher’s first World Cup, which runs Aug. 22 to Sept. 27, while fellow uOttawa Gee-Gee product Maya Montiel is also on Canada’s World Cup roster.

Canada will play its preliminary games in Pool B against No. 7 Scotland, No. 9 Wales and No. 14 Fiji.

“We are fortunate that Rugby Canada is fully invested in supporting us in our mission to win a World Cup and inspire the growth of rugby in our country,” forward Sophie de Goede of Victoria said in a press release.

“That support has only grown over the years to the point that now, unlike many unions, our financial support is on equal footing to the men’s program. The unfortunate part is that the resource pool from which those finances are pulled is much smaller than our competition and our union has been working tirelessly to grow that.”

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