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Black Ferns clinch bronze at Women's Rugby World Cup
AAP • September 28th, 2025 1:35 am
The Black Ferns celebrate their World Cup bronze final win over France at Twickenham | Photo: AP
New Zealand have won the bronze final at the Women's Rugby World Cup, surviving a late French surge to triumph 42-26 in front of more than 50,000 fans in the curtain-raiser to the final between England and Canada.
It was a bittersweet success for the Black Ferns, the defending champions and six-times winners, who were surprisingly beaten by Canada in the semi-finals.
France opened the scoring through Pauline Bourdon but it was almost all one-way traffic in the opposite direction after that as superbly-crafted tries by Ruahei Demant, Silvia Brunt, Renee Holmes and Laura Bayfield put the Black Ferns 26-7 ahead at the break.
Their 18-year-old winger Braxton Sorensen-McGee stretched that with two tries early in the second half – taking her tournament tally to 11 – before France hit back with three tries in 10 minutes through Lea Champon, Gaby Vernier and Emilie Boulard to give New Zealand a nervy finale.
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