England Overcome France to Secure Spot in Rugby World cup Final
Auckland, New Zealand – England have secured their place in the Rugby World Cup final, defeating France 28-17 in a hard-fought semi-final clash. The victory,played in front of a capacity crowd,sees the world No.1 ranked team advance to a home final at Allianz Stadium next Saturday.
Despite initial nerves, England demonstrated their championship pedigree. Abbie Ward opened the scoring for the hosts, finishing a well-executed team move, before Ellie Kildunne delivered a pivotal performance, breaking through the French defense from over 40 metres out. Further tries from Sadia Kabeya (tournament leading tackler with 83 total) and Meg Jones sealed the win, though a late attempt from Konde offered a glimmer of hope for France.
Kildunne, despite a standout performance including two tries and 208 metres made, deflected individual praise.”The first thing I said was I’ve stolen that from the rest of the team. Hannah Botterman, Maud Muir, all the forwards, you saw the defence they put in today. I barely had to make any tackles so I don’t know why I got it,” she said with a laugh, before adding, “I’m absolutely buzzing, this is all we’ve been dreaming of. We’ve got another week of training and we’ll keep our heads down. We know what we’ve got coming. I don’t even know what to say any more!” She concluded with a plea to supporters: “Thank you to all the support, thank you to my team. We’ve got a final to go to, we need you there.”
England Head Coach John Mitchell anticipated a tough contest, dismissing pre-match predictions of a dominant performance. “I knew they were going to come at us. You could tell through the events during the week and the emotion they shared in their warm-up,” Mitchell explained. “We just had to win, fight our way out of it. To get yourself out of a difficult performance like tonight is a credit to them. Defensively,in the middle of the field we were very good. there was some courage and a lot of heart shown there.”
France’s Head Coach David Ortiz acknowledged England’s strength. “We knew we could have a big fight against England,we knew we could have a big arm wrestle against them. In the end they were very strong,” Ortiz said. “In the end when they pushed a little bit harder and when we let go a little bit, that’s what made the difference.”
England’s defensive resilience proved crucial, exemplified by sadia Kabeya’s 21 tackles in the match.
England will now face Canada, ranked No.2 in the world, in the final. France will compete for the bronze medal against defending champions New zealand.
