Canada Lost in La Rochelle. The Bigger Test Comes in Toronto
By Nii Wallace-Bruce
Three September Tests gave Canada three different lessons. England in Toronto will show whether it learned from them.
A year ago today, Canada left Twickenham with silver medals and a question.
Could the team that had taken England to a World Cup final become good enough to beat England?
Twelve months later, the answer is no longer hypothetical.
Canada has drawn with England in Exeter, ending the Red Roses' 39-match winning streak. It has beaten Scotland. It has now lost to France in La Rochelle.
And in three weeks, England will arrive in Toronto.
There is no reason to disguise what that means. France exposed areas Canada still has to improve, and the defeat leaves the European tour with a record of one win, one draw and one loss.
But that is also why this September matters.
For a team trying to close the final gap to a World Cup title, three different matches against elite opposition are more useful than three comfortable victories.
Canada has spent the month learning what happens when the game goes its way, when it hangs in the balance, and when the opponent controls it.
The next lesson comes in Toronto.
The World Cup Pool That Wasn't
There is an interesting way to view this September programme.
Imagine Scotland, England and France were not three stops on a new WXV Global Series calendar but three matches in a World Cup pool.
Suddenly the importance of the sequence changes.
Canada would not be judged solely on whether it beat France in La Rochelle.
It would be judged on whether the points accumulated across three difficult matches were enough to carry it into the knockout stage—and, if they were, what kind of team emerged from the pool.
That is the particular value of the current WXV structure.
World Rugby has moved the leading nations toward a more structured cross-regional model, creating a run of meaningful fixtures rather than isolated Tests.
The stated objective is to give the leading nations more certainty and continuity on the road to the 2029 World Cup.
Canada has therefore been given something international rugby rarely offers: the opportunity to learn against the same level of opponent while the lessons are still fresh.
The Scotland match told Canada that it could impose itself.
The England match told Canada that it could withstand pressure from the world's leading side.
France showed Canada what happens when it cannot dictate the terms.
That is a more useful education than an undefeated month would necessarily have provided.
England Changed the Context
The draw in Exeter remains the defining result of the tour.
Not because Canada should celebrate a draw as though it were a victory.
Kevin Rouet himself made that distinction immediately afterwards, saying he wished Canada had secured the win. But because of what the final 20 minutes required.
England had Canada under sustained pressure. Canada defended its line.
The side that had been repeatedly stretched by England in the 2025 World Cup final refused to break in the same circumstances 12 months later.
One year ago: England turned sustained pressure into a 33–13 victory. The Red Roses were dominant with tackling, scrums, and territorial control.
One week ago: England applied sustained pressure and Canada refused to break.
That does not mean the teams have become equals in every facet. It means the Canadian side has added another layer to its game.
And now it gets to test that layer again. Twice.
Canada will be looking to create more pressure at home against England (Photo Credit: Rugby Canada)
France Showed the Other Side
France's victory should neither erase what Canada did in Exeter nor excuse what went wrong in La Rochelle.
The point of a tour like this is not to emerge undefeated; it is to discover what survives when the conditions change.
France showed Canada what happens when it cannot dictate the terms.
France posed a different tactical problem, a different physical examination and a different atmosphere from the first two matches.
Les Bleues signalled their intentions early with blistering pressure and a patient build up of phases.
It was only the last limbs of the Canadian defense that prevented a try within the first five minutes.
France eventually got its reward for sustained possession and territorial control with Emilie Boulard’s try after 21 minutes.
Their attacking verve was matched by a disciplined defense, succeeding at slowing Canada’s ball movement.
This defensive effort was matched by intensity at set-pieces, led by Mouna Toure, as well as the ability to force turnovers, frustrating the visitors.
In the second half, France’s ball movement from the halfbacks resulted in two tries that settled the match as a contest.
Ten minutes after the teams switched sides, Les Bleues captain Pauline Bourdon Sansus made a sublime behind the back pass to deliver Boulard’s second try of the match.
In the closing stages of the game, replacement scrum-half Alexandra Chambon looped around a five metre scrum to go over for the third try of the match for France.
And Canada had also made changes.
Sophie de Goede was rested ahead of the October Tests, while Rouet made five changes from the side that drew with England.
DaLeaka Menin was approaching her 75th cap, and Savannah Bauder made her first start at fullback.
Prior to the game, the starting XV was changed again when winger Asia Hogan-Rochester was withdrawn due to injury.
A World Cup team cannot be built around 15 players performing at their maximum every week.
After four weeks on the road, and with changes to the starting XV, Canada faced another test of its depth.
The challenge between World Cups is to develop enough depth that the identity survives changes in personnel, injuries, fatigue and opposition.
France therefore becomes less a verdict than another piece of evidence. The question is not whether Canada should have won in La Rochelle.
It is what the coaching staff can take from losing there before England arrives in Canada.
Now England Comes to Toronto
The geography of this tour is now important.
Canada left for Europe carrying the memory of a World Cup final. It returns home carrying something more useful: recent experience against England.
In the kind of World Cup scenario Canada is now preparing for, England could be waiting on the other side of the pool stage.
Kevin Rouet has been focused on becoming World No. 1 and knows that consistency is required to get there.
Now he will get two more examinations against the very team he hopes to surpass.
The next match is October 16 at BMO Field.
It is the first Canadian home Test since the 2025 World Cup final—and the first women's Test in the GTA since Canada faced England in Oakville in 2011.
A week later, the same teams meet again in Ottawa.
There is even an unofficial piece of history waiting in Toronto. England currently holds the Utrecht Shield, the fan-created lineal women's world title.
England retained it by beating New Zealand on Saturday. Canada has held it before, taking it from New Zealand in 2024. Now it comes to Canada again.
If Canada beats England in Toronto, the Shield changes hands. If England survives, it will be on the line again in Ottawa.
The World Cup trophy will not be in Toronto. But a year after England took that from Canada, another piece of rugby folklore will be up for grabs.
It is unofficial, slightly eccentric and entirely supplementary. It is also exactly the sort of thing that makes international rugby fun.
Rugby Canada has effectively turned the England rivalry into a three-match sequence this autumn: Exeter, Toronto, Ottawa.
That changes the tactical equation.
England has now seen Canada's adjustments. Canada has now seen England's. Neither coaching staff gets to prepare for an opponent based on memories from 12 months ago.
They have fresh film. Fresh evidence. Fresh problems.
For Kevin Rouet, the October Tests therefore become something more demanding than a World Cup rematch.
They become an experiment in adaptation.
Can Canada identify what England changed in Exeter?
Can it find ways to create more attacking opportunities?
Can it turn the defensive resilience of the final 20 minutes into an 80-minute performance?
And perhaps most importantly, can Canada win the moments it failed to win in La Rochelle?
Those are the questions that will make Toronto more revealing than the result alone.
England’s Ellie Kildunne and Claudia Moloney-Mcdonald hold the Utrecht Shield, retained by England since October 2024. (Photo Credit: David Algie / Raeburn and Utrecht Shields [CC BY-SA 4.0])
The Other Test: Who Comes Next?
Canada’s problem is no longer simply reaching England's level for 80 minutes. It is finding enough players to stay there.
That is where the story leaves La Rochelle and heads back to Canada.
The number is striking. Rugby Canada says 88 percent of the 32-player squad that reached last year's World Cup final came through U SPORTS.
The pathway is not a theoretical future solution. It is the reason much of the current team exists.
That makes Rugby Canada's recent U SPORTS developments particularly relevant. For the women's programme, the relationship is already established.
In January, Rugby Canada described U SPORTS and university programmes as a vital component of the women's pathway while simultaneously expanding regional identification camps and competitions. The aim, Rouet said, was to give Canadian women more high-performance rugby at home.
The future of the Canadian women's team cannot depend entirely on players leaving for Europe. Nor can it depend entirely on the university system. It needs both.
A strong domestic pathway creates more players. Professional opportunities allow the best players to sharpen themselves against elite competition.
Rugby Canada then needs to connect those worlds. The September tour has shown what the top of that pathway can look like.
The senior team is testing itself against England and France.
The pathway beneath it is trying to make sure there is another Lizzie Gibson, another Olivia Apps, another Sophie de Goede waiting behind the current generation.
Canada does not have England's depth of professional contracts. It therefore has to be exceptionally good at developing what it does have.
There is another story running underneath Canada's September campaign. It is not happening in Edinburgh, Exeter or La Rochelle.
It is happening on university campuses across Canada.
Rugby Canada has been increasingly explicit that U SPORTS is not merely a recreational or developmental branch of the sport. It is part of the national-team pathway.
The connection extends below the senior team.
Canada's U21 women's programme used regional camps in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and the Atlantic, alongside provincial U19 competition, regional games and U SPORTS performances, when selecting its 2026 squad. Every player selected had U SPORTS experience.
Twenty-six had played in the 2025 U SPORTS Women's National Rugby Championship.
And in September, 12 university players represented Canada at the FISU World University Championship in South Africa, drawn from universities across Canada and the United States.
That makes the university system more than a pipeline in the abstract. It is already producing the players who make the international team possible.
The current squad illustrates that reality. The pathway is not theoretical.
It is visible on the team sheet.
September Was the Rehearsal. October Is the Examination.
The temptation now will be to divide the tour into good results and bad ones.
Scotland: success.
England: achievement.
France: disappointment.
But that would miss what makes the sequence valuable.
Canada has spent three weeks moving through three versions of international rugby.
It dominated. It endured. It lost.
Now it comes home. Canada will not know what September ultimately meant because of the record. It will know in October.
England has already seen Canada at its best and under pressure. Canada has seen the same from England.
Now they meet again, this time in Toronto, with the film still fresh and the World Cup final still sitting somewhere in the background.
A year ago, England ended Canada's World Cup. Since then, Canada has spent 12 months trying to close the distance.
Exeter showed the distance had narrowed. La Rochelle showed there is still work to do.
Now England comes to Toronto.
The World Cup final is a year old. The rivalry isn't.
Sources:
Kevin Rouet, Canada women’s head coach, press conference, 26 September 2026
Photo Credits:
Running at the French line, Rugby Canada, 26 September 2026 - Photo courtesy of Rugby Canada
The Utrecht Shield with Ellie Kildunne and Claudia Moloney-Mcdonald, David Algie - Photo courtesy of David Algie / Raeburn and Utrecht Shields
All photos are used with permission. All rights reserved to the creator.
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