Ahead of the Rugby World Cup kicking off on Friday, we’ve pulled together the key intel to guide you through the pool stage. Below, you’ll find what to expect from each group as well as eight players set to grab the headlines.
Click to quickly jump to each pool:
Pool A: England, United States, Australia, Samoa
Pool B: Canada, Fiji, Wales, Scotland
Pool C: New Zealand, Ireland, Spain, Japan
Pool D: France, Brazil, Italy, South Africa
Pool A: England, United States, Australia, Samoa
Hosts and hot favourites England find themselves in Pool A alongside the United States – champions of the inaugural 1991 World Cup – as well as Australia and Samoa.
The pressure on John Mitchell’s Red Roses will be intense, but they are used to that. They’ve been the world’s dominant side for years. Their only defeat in their last 58 matches came in the 2022 World Cup final against New Zealand. This time, anything short of lifting the trophy will be seen as failure.
The USA may boast one of rugby’s most recognisable players in Ilona Maher, but consistency has eluded them. Their clash with Australia will likely decide who joins England in the knockouts. Samoa are expected to finish fourth, though they did push the USA close in a 2023 WXV2 meeting, losing by fewer than 10 points.
Pool A Player(s) to Watch #1: Sarah Bern & Maud Muir (England)
The Red Roses squad is full of superstars – most of them would start for almost any other team at this World Cup.
For our pick, we’ve not gone for one of the Rodeo girls in the backfield, nor one of their creative playmakers in the hinge; instead we’ve gone direct to the front-row. Not a single player either but a duo, both of them competing for the tight-head spot, in Sarah Bern and Maud Muir.
Bern will be playing in her third consecutive World Cup, having been the youngest member of the 2017 squad aged just 20. Her ball carrying is what we think makes her a potential star of this campaign.
She logged just under 200 minutes in the 2025 Six Nations, making 36 carries for 145 metres, scoring three tries, beating 10 defenders, and completing all 21 of her tackles. But the real story is in her efficiency: 72% of her carries drew multiple tacklers, 86% crossed the gainline, and 60% were dominant.
Luckily for England, they have an almost like-for-like threat in Muir, meaning the opposition face an 80-minute onslaught.
Muir is just as imposing. In the 2025 Six Nations, her dominant carry rate of 81% was the best of any player with 20+ carries. She drew two or more tacklers from 73% of her runs, succeeded over the gainline 77% of the time, and beat nearly a third of tacklers faced.
However Mitchell rotates them, the pair will provide England with relentless go-forward, creating space and time for their lethal outside backs to punish tired defences.
Pool A Player to Watch #2: Caitlyn Halse (Australia)
Caitlyn Halse is the second-youngest member of Australia’s 2025 Rugby World Cup squad after Waiaria Ellis (17). The 18-year-old has already made an impact on the international stage in her 11 Tests for the Wallaroos, as well as in 15 appearances for the NSW Waratahs in Super Rugby Women.
Halse gained 6.9 metres per carry from her 21 carries in the 2025 Pacific Four Series, the third most of any player on average (20+ carries) after the USA’s Alev Kelter (9.8) and New Zealand’s Braxton Sorensen-McGee (9.2).
She proved to be one of the most difficult Wallaroos to stop, too, with only Charlotte Caslick (15) beating more defenders than Halse (5) for Australia.
She relishes wide-open spaces to unleash her speed in attack. Halse also racked up 123 metres on kick returns – the second-most in the tournament – and has gained more return metres than any player in Super Rugby Women since her 2023 debut.
Halse has also stood out as one of the most creative players in Super Rugby Women. Her 11 try assists for the NSW Waratahs are only bettered by Arabella McKenzie and Georgina Friedrichs (both 12) since her debut.
Both of those players again are the only individuals to surpass Halse for break assists (Friedrichs – 27, McKenzie – 26, Halse – 24). It’s worth noting they are significantly older and more experienced than Halse, though (Friedrichs – 30, McKenzie – 26), which makes her skills at such a young age even more impressive.
Australia open against Samoa before taking on the USA and England. They’ll hope Halse’s pace, flair and fearlessness provide the spark for a strong campaign.
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Pool B: Canada, Fiji, Wales, Scotland
Canada enter the World Cup ranked No. 2 in the world, making them the leading candidates to finally break the England–New Zealand duopoly that has existed since 1994.
Fiji are participating in their second World Cup after being eliminated early in New Zealand three years ago. They head into the competition under new head coach Ioan Cunningham, who joined the Fijiana in February following four years with Wales. He’s set for a reunion with them at Sandy Park in the final round of pool fixtures.
Wales will be keen to improve on a lacklustre Six Nations campaign that saw them receive a second consecutive wooden spoon. Scotland only fared slightly better, finishing fifth, but victories against Wales and Ireland in that competition will give them hope of reaching a first quarter-final since hosting the World Cup in 1994, when they were knocked out by Wales.
Pool B Player to Watch #1: Fancy Bermudez (Canada)
Fancy Bermudez is set for her first World Cup after excelling in both 15s and 7s. She won Olympic silver with Canada’s Sevens team in 2024, a year after marking her 15s debut with two tries against South Africa. She’s notched another pair of braces since then, crossing the line twice in back-to-back games against New Zealand and France last year, with her overall record for Canada standing at nine tries in 18 Tests.
Bermudez joined Saracens last season following the conclusion of the 2024 WXV campaign where she scored two tries and made four line breaks in just 158 minutes of action. While her gametime at Sarries has been limited due to her commitments on the SVNS circuit, Bermudez has still managed to make quite the impression on English shores.
Her footwork more than lives up to her first name. Of the 208 players to face 30+ tackles in last season’s Premiership Women’s Rugby, she was one of just three to evade at least half of the attempts on her (53%, also Vicky Laflin and Krissy Scurfield). She also topped the charts for metres gained per carry, with an average of 10.3 (min. 20 carries).
Bermudez is one of eight Saracens players in Canada’s World Cup squad, and with the likes of Gabrielle Senft, Paige Farries and 2022 World Rugby Player of the Year nominee Sophie de Goede among that contingent, Canada will fancy their chances of reaching a second consecutive semi-final.
Pool B Player to Watch #2: Francesca McGhie (Scotland)
Francesca McGhie made her Scotland debut aged 19 in the 2023 Six Nations and immediately became indispensable. She scored three tries in five Tests that year, helping Scotland win WXV2 and earning a World Rugby Breakthrough Player nomination.
She was the only player to evade at least half of the tackles she faced in this year’s Six Nations (50%, min. 30 tackles faced), with nobody coming within touching distance of her 26 defenders beaten. Only England’s Abby Dow (12) bettered her tally of nine breaks.
McGhie is yet to face Canada or Fiji in her international career but does boast try-scoring pedigree against Scotland’s final pool opponents, Wales, scoring a brace against them in Edinburgh last September.
At club level, Leicester Tigers will be without her talents next season after she traded them for the Trailfinders, where she’ll link up with several of her Scotland teammates, including Lisa Thomson, Caity Mattinson and Rachel Malcolm, all of whom will also be pivotal to their nation’s hopes of advancing.
McGhie was the Tigers’ most potent threat in the PWR last season, averaging one line break for every 5.2 carries she made, with her average of 1.7 line breaks per 80 minutes the fourth-best rate in the league (min. 400 minutes played).
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Pool C: New Zealand, Ireland, Spain, Japan
New Zealand have won the Women’s Rugby World Cup more often than any other nation, with their six titles coming across the last seven editions. Three years ago, they won on home soil, edging a highly-fancied England side in the final at Eden Park.
They will have every belief they can make it seven titles in 2025, but there are plenty of teams who could beat them.
Ireland are among the challengers. They beat the Black Ferns in WXV1 last year and also in their only previous World Cup meeting, back in 2014. The Irish will be hunting revenge against Spain as well, after an 8-7 defeat cost them qualification to the 2021 World Cup.
Japan are the final side in the pool and having beaten Spain twice this July, will fancy their chances to finish at least third.
Pool C Player to Watch #1: Jorja Miller (New Zealand)
Sevens sensation Jorja Miller has catapulted herself into the Black Ferns squad for this World Cup after an extraordinary year in Sevens and a powerful start to her Test career. Still just 21-years-old, Miller is already an established player in New Zealand rugby after making her Farah Palmer Cup debut in 2019.
Miller has scored at least one try in each of her last six games for New Zealand on the Sevens circuit (7 in total), including tries in all five of her appearances at the most recent SVNS tournament in Los Angeles.
Those who were able to stop her were then often left watching an impressive offload keep the ball alive. Miller is the only player on the Sevens circuit to have scored 20+ tries, made 20+ line breaks, and 20+ offloads in 2025, while only Michaela Brake’s astronomical 40 tries for the year lead Miller (21) for New Zealand.
She carried that form into her Black Ferns debut this year, producing three try assists, two breaks and three offloads in a thrashing of the USA – the first forward on Opta record to assist three tries in a game.
Grit, verve, speed, and the rugby nous to put it all together make Jorja Miller one of the most exciting players to watch at the upcoming Rugby World Cup.
Names like Portia Woodman-Wickliffe, Kendra Cocksedge, and Ruahei Demant are synonymous with the Black Ferns and their historical successes, but now Miller has the opportunity to put her name alongside those legends.
Pool C Player to Watch #2: Neve Jones (Ireland)
Neve Jones has been a regular fixture in the Irish front-row since her debut against Italy in the 2020 Six Nations, improving year-on-year to become the tackling machine that she is now.
At club level, Jones was successful from 201 of her 202 tackle-success attempts in the 2024-25 PWR season as she helped Gloucester-Hartpury to their third title in the three years she’s been at the club. Her 99.5% tackle-success rate was comfortably the highest among the 250 players to attempt 40+ tackles in the league last term. Ireland captain Edel McMahon had the second-best rate (98%), just ahead of England skipper Zoe Aldcroft (97%). Jones was also the only hooker to make 10+ dominant tackles in the competition, registering 17 in total.
Far from just being a menace in open play, she’s proven to be a more than capable lineout orchestrator. Her 86% throw success rate was the second-highest in the league among the 15 hookers with 40+ attempts last season.
If her PWR figures were impressive, her numbers in this year’s Six Nations were even more so, bringing the opponent to ground from all 61 of her tackle attempts, with three of them resulting in a turnover won, the joint-most of any forward (also Abbie Fleming).
Jones tends to save her best for the big occasion: she was successful from 16/16 tackle attempts in Gloucester-Hartpury’s victorious PWR final against Saracens after making 14/14 against Bristol Bears in the semis a fortnight previously.
In the green jersey for Ireland, she made 14/14 tackles against New Zealand in last year’s WXV 1, with her defensive efforts playing a pivotal role as Ireland recorded a famous victory over the Black Ferns, who they’re set to face in their final pool fixture at Franklin’s Gardens.
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Pool D: France, Brazil, Italy, South Africa
Pool D welcomes the only side making their debut at the 2025 World Cup, Brazil. They are the first South American team to feature in the tournament and off the back of some inspirational progress in the Sevens game, they will fancy their chances of causing some upsets.
Heavyweights France will be the favourites to progress from this cohort. They’ve finished third in seven of the previous nine editions of the tournament, but have yet to reach the final. A heavy loss to England in preparation for the World Cup won’t have boosted confidence but they should still go deep.
Italy have been slightly unpredictable across the last few seasons but will be confident of making it out the group. Three wins out of three against South Africa, including wins in the 2023 and 2024 iterations of WXV2, should give them the upper hand in that crucial tie.
Pool D Player to Watch #1: Alyssa D’Inca (Italy)
Alyssa D’Inca epitomises Italy’s passion and belief. Originally a centre, she now thrives on the wing, where her pace and power shine.
She was named as the MVP in the Italian Serie A Elite league in 2023-24 , as well being nominated for the Player of the Championship in the 2024 Six Nations, featuring in the Fans’ XV and scoring the official Try of the Championship, too.
D’Inca won more turnovers in that breakthrough tournament than any other player (eight), made at least four more dominant tackles than any other back (11), and made 14.1 metres per carry, the best of any player.
Her 2025 form has been just as strong; of the 83 players to make 20+ carries in the 2025 Six Nations, only two (Tatyana Heard and Claudia Moloney-MacDonald) had a better gainline success rate than D’Inca (91%).
Defensively, she was a real force too. D’Inca was one of just two players to reach double figures (10) for dominant tackles, along with teammate Sara Tounesi (12).
D’Inca will come up against France in the pool stage and is well accustomed to crossing the whitewash against them, notching three tries in her last three Six Nations fixtures against Les Bleues, while accruing 135 metres gained from 14 carries in those fixtures too.
The 23-year-old also scored a try and made 105 metres from 10 carries in her one previous game against South Africa in WXV2 in 2023.
If D’Inca can continue her devastating form, Le Azzure stand a strong chance of reaching the knockout stages again and challenging the best in the world.
Pool D Player to Watch #2: Aseza Hele (South Africa)
South Africa lost all three pool stage games in the last World Cup but are determined to do better in 2025, and one player who can lead that charge is Aseza Hele. The self-labelled ‘monster’ can cause chaos and is a real focal point for the side, on and off the pitch.
The 30-year-old had one season with Harlequins in the Women’s Premiership Rugby in England, but has played most of her club rugby for Boland in her native South Africa. Internationally, she has made five appearances in WXV2, scoring three tries and beating nine defenders across 267 minutes of action.
One of those three tries came against Italy when they met in 2024, but she did also get shown a red card against Le Azzure when they met in the same competition in 2023 for a head-on-head tackle.
Across the last two WXV2 campaigns, Hele has the best gainline success rate (94%) of any player to make more than 10 carries, showcasing her power with ball in hand, with a tackle evasion rate of 31% further supporting these credentials.
In the 2021 World Cup (played in 2022), she established herself as a star. Hele made the most carries (34) of any South Africa player, beating twice as many defenders (20) as any teammate, and actually beating more defenders in the pool stage than any player from any nation.
No doubt Hele will be crucial to South Africa’s chances of securing a first World Cup pool-stage victory since 2010, and even potentially passage to the knockout stage.
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