PAC4 2024 starts today

Last year's P4N winners, New Zealand

The “PAC4” is an annual round-robin tournament featuring Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. There is no relegation from the PAC4. As with the Six Nations it is a closed competition, although unlike the 6N it is run by World Rugby.

This is the fourth edition of the PAC4, though the first in 2021 only included USA and Canada who played each other twice in Colorado, Canada winning both legs.

The first tournament to feature all four nations was in 2022 and took place entirely in New Zealand, with the host winning and Canada ending runners-up, and USA third.

Last year’s competition mainly took place in Ottawa, but with games also played in Brisbane and Madrid. New Zealand and Canada again ended first and second, but on this occasion Australia took third. Last year’s competition was also the first linked to WXV, the outcome meaning that the USA played in WXV2 while the other three teams played in WXV1. The same will apply this year.

In addition the tournament is – in theory – a World Cup qualifier, as whichever of Australia and USA ends highest ranked will officially qualify for the tournament in England next year. There will no doubt be much hoopla made about this by World Rugby, however, in practice this will be somewhat meaningless. All four teams in the P4N will go to the World Cup regardless of results because they will all play in either WXV1 or WXV2, and every team in these two tournaments qualifies. The structure of the current qualification process means that it is impossible for a PAC4 team to not qualify for the World Cup.

It is almost as impossible to see any outcome other than New Zealand winning the PAC4 this year, but the other rankings are not as certain.

Today’s match in particular carries an extra level of spice as Canada will be hosting WXV1 later this year, so really have to win in LA as otherwise they risk missing out on their own party unless they beat Australia in Sydney next month. They will start favourites – they have not lost to the USA since 2019 and have won 11 of the last 12 meetings between the teams – but the outcome is far from a foregone conclusion.

Assuming today’s game goes to form the identity of the team to take the third WXV1 spot is even less clear, with USA and Australia at 1-1 from their previous PAC4 meetings.

Today all but three of the USA team selected play in the English Premiership, which enabled them to warm up with a strong performance against South Africa at Ealing during the ‘Boks European tour at the end of last month.

All but two of the Canadian squad play abroad but they have not played together since they beat France in WXV1 in November.

Commenting on this Canadian coach Kevin Rouet said “All of our players have been playing at a high level in Canada and around the world since our last game together. They are eager to get back on the field on Sunday as we look to continue to build momentum for the next two matches with a strong showing against our long-time rivals.”

Teams

USA

1 Hope Rogers, 2 Kathryn Treder, 3 Mae Sagapolu, 4 Erica Jarrell, 5 Hallie Taufo’ou, 6 Tahlia Brody, 7 Georgie Perris-Redding, 8 Rachel Johnson (capt.), 9 Olivia Ortiz, 10 McKenzie Hawkins, 11 Autumn Czaplicki, 12 Gabby Cantorna, 13 Bulou Mataitoga, 14 Emily Henrich, 15 Tess Feury

Replacements: 16 Paige Stathopoulos, 17 Catie Benson, 18 Charli Jacoby, 19 Jenny Kronish, 20 Rachel Ehrecke, 21 Cassidy Bargell, 22 Katana Howard, 23 Mata Hingano

CANADA

1 Olivia DeMerchant, 2 Sara Cline, 3 DaLeaka Menin, 4 Tyson Beukeboom, 5 Laetitia Royer, 6 Pamphinette Buisa, 7 Sophie de Goede (capt.), 8 Gabrielle Senft, 9 Justine Pelletier, 10 Claire Gallagher, 11 Paige Farries, 12 Alex Tessier, 13 Shoshanah Seumanutafa, 14 Maddy Grant, 15 Sabrina Poulin

Replacements: 16 Emily Tuttosi, 17 McKinley Hunt, 18 Alex Ellis, 19 Courtney Holtkamp, 20 Julia Omokhuale, 21 Olivia Apps, 22 Julia Schell, 23 Fancy Bermudez

Other fixtures:

11 May: New Zealand v USA (Hamilton); Australia v Canada (Sydney)

17 May: Australia v USA (Melbourne)

19 May: New Zealand v Canada (Christchurch)

25 May: New Zealand v Australia (North Harbour)