On Sunday, all eyes were turned to York Community Stadium in England, where coach Swys de Bruin and his team played their second match of the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup against Italy.
In what was a nail-biter of a game, it was the women in green and gold who kicked off the match in excellent fashion when No.8 Aseza Hele benefited from a powerful scrum to crash through the opposition’s defense and score the first try of the match within the first 2 minutes of the game.
Just under 20 minutes later, the Bok women extended their lead to 12-0 courtesy of quick thinking interplay between fly-half Libbe Janse van Rensburg and full-back Nadine Roos, who cut through Italy’s defense and scored underneath the posts.
Despite their good start to the game, it was far from an easy one for the African travelers as the Italians later found their spark and put up an outstanding performance to level the score at 24-24 with ten minutes to go until full time. However, it appears the Boks just wanted it more. In the 72nd minute, the women dug deep to break through the solid defense of their opponents, leading the game by 29 –24, which was how the score remained until the final whistle.
This was a moment filled with emotion as supporting staff were spotted breathing a sigh of relief and secured their place in the semi-finals with one more match to go in their pool.
Speaking about what the moment meant to them was coach Swys who said, “This is unreal, it is so emotional. We have never made the quarters, we have never beaten Italy.
“The nation is so much behind these girls. It is in our blood. We just love it. We try to copy our men’s teams, the sevens, the under-20s. We thought we must catch up now. Our girls were absolutely fantastic.”
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