Day One: Pool C Roundup

CANADA 37 SCOTLAND 10

Canada have got their World Cup campaign off to a great start with a 37-10 victory over Scotland. Canada did most of the damage in the first half as they led 25-0 at the break.

They wrapped up their bonus point early in the second half and took their foot off the pedal with the points in the bag.

Read the Canada match reportHERE.

FRANCE

FRANCE 15-9 SWEDEN

The match with the smallest crowd turned out arguably the Match of the Day, particularly if you were looking for nail-biting tension and a game where the lead changes hands, and no side lead by more than six points.

The opening minutes saw France as expected - drive towards the Swedish line, with captain Sandra Rabier going over. Though the conversion was missed, the game seemed to be going to expectations. Sweden, however, had other plans. The next half-hour saw the tournaments outsiders rarely out of the French 22, the pressure resulting in two penalties, expertly slotted between the posts by Ulrika Anderson-Hall, who was having a superb game.

Despite their lack of success, French tactics remained unchanged. In effect this was based on a series of mauls by the forwards gets the team into an excellent attacking position, the ball was then passed out to fly, who swept the ball out to Sandrine Agricole, who then dropped it. Occasionally this was varied with one of the other backs demonstrating an inability to catch, but under the pressure of the Swedish defence there was little variation throughout the match.

Only near the end of the first half a rare Swedish defensive error allowed France a 3-1 overlap, and Claire Canal went over in the corner by Anderson-Hall responded by sending her third penalty over to give the third seed a narrow 10-9 lead at half-time.

The second half continued in the same way French handling errors nullifying their forwards dominance. It took a yellow card for Swedish second-row Madalene Lahti before France were able to string an effective offence together, with a drive from a line-out seeing Canal going over for her second try, giving her team a 15-9 lead that remained to the end of the game.

This was a remarkable performance by Sweden, confident, exciting. As well as the peerless Anderson-Hall, prop Jenny Ohman was everwhere, while Elisabeth Ygge at No 8 helped maintain Swedish possession despite a scrum that kept going backwards. The single bonus point they achieved was the minimum they deserved. As for France, play like this again and the can forget about any dream of a semi-final possession.