Canada women’s rugby coach Kevin Rouet has named a 40-player roster for a camp ahead of a pair of World Rugby Pacific Four Series matches in Ottawa next month.
The pretournament camp will be held in Perth, Ont., from June 26 to July 1.
The fourth-ranked Canadian women play No. 2 New Zealand on July 8 and No. 5 Australia on July 14 at TD Place Stadium. Canada defeated the seventh-ranked U.S. 50-17 on April 1 in its opening match of the four-team tournament in Madrid.
The camp roster includes 22 players from the Canadian team that finished fourth at last year’s World Cup in New Zealand.
Emily Tuttosi, Daleaka Menin and Gabrielle Senft will come to camp from England where they will look to help the Exeter Chefs beat Gloucester-Hartpury RFC in the Premier 15s final. Gloucester-Hartpury (16-2-0) topped the regular-season standings, finishing one point ahead of Exeter (15-3-0).
World Cup champion New Zealand opens Pacific Four Series play June 29 against Australia in Brisbane.
The top three Pacific Four Series teams will join No. 1 England, No. 3 France and No. 6 Wales – the top three sides from the 2023 Women’s Six Nations – in the inaugural WXV, a new three-tier annual global women’s international 15s competition.
The bottom Pacific Four Series team will slot into the WXV second tier, alongside two teams from Europe and regional qualification winners from Africa, Asia and Oceania.
The WXV is scheduled for October-November.
The Canadian roster also includes seven players who competed on the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series circuit this season: Alysha Corrigan, Fancy Bermudez, Florence Symonds, Madison Grant, Olivia Apps, Sabrina Poulin and Canada 15s captain Sophie de Goede.
The roster also includes the uncapped Savannah Bauder, Mya Brubacher, Sara Cline, Jordan McLeod, Shoshanah Seumanutafa, Ashlynn Smith, Rachel Smith and Rori Wood.