The Women’s Rugby Europe Championship for 2025 gets underway this weekend.
The four-team tournament - which also includes Netherlands and Sweden - starts with Portugal, third in 2024, hosting the reigning champions Spain on Saturday.
At 4pm local time (4pm UTC) they will meet in the Estádio Municipal in Cartaxo and Spain have dominated the Women’s Championship since 2016 and they will look to do so again this year.
They are 13th in the world rankings and Portugal are 25th and when the sides met in this event last year the Spanish came out on top 24-0.
Spain opened the scoring in that one in the seventh minute when a well-worked lineout drive was finished off by hooker Cristina Blanco for the opening try. It was unconverted.
Just before the end of the first quarter, a great counter attack saw Spain score their second try. After a number of players had made yards, stand- off Amalia Argudo’s lovely inside pass put full-back Claudia Pena through a gap and over under the posts.
Argudo’s conversion made it 12-0.
A crucial third try came for Spain just before half-time and it was a real blow for Portugal.
Portugal had generally defended well in the half, but here a simple pop pass from scrum-half Lucia Diaz put loosehead prop María Del Castillo away and through for the score. Argudo’s conversion made it 19-0 at the break.
After that you might have thought Spain would streak away in the second period against tiring opponents, but real credit must go to Portugal who stuck in and showed real battling qualities.
The only points of the second 40 minutes came when, after Argudo had gone close, Diaz was alert to pick up from the base and dive over for try number four. It was unconverted.
That was in the 58th minute and it was 24-0 and that was the way things would finish with Diaz being named player of the match after playing with pace and being a constant thorn in Portugal’s side.
Fast forward a year and it will be good to see these sides going toe-to-toe again.
Laura Delgado from Spain said: “This tournament is a big opportunity for us to keep building ahead of the Rugby World Cup later this year.
“All of the players are excited about that event, but for now we are focusing on this Championship and we want to start off with a good performance in Portugal.”
Later in the year at the World Cup in England, Spain will be in Pool C with New Zealand, Ireland and Japan.
Sara Moreira from Portugal said: “It is a tough start for us against a Spain team getting ready for the World Cup, but we have been training hard and the squad is coming together well.
“We had a physical Test match against Brazil two weeks ago and that was good preparation for this game and gave us things to work on.”
Portugal lost to World Cup qualifiers Brazil in the game Moreira mentions 19-12 while, last week, Spain defeated the Brazilians 41-12.
- Before the Women’s Championship gets underway, earlier on Saturday there is a Men’s Rugby Europe Trophy match.
At 2pm local time (12pm UTC) fifth placed Lithuania will host third placed Czechia in the Baltrex Stadium.
Both teams are playing their final games in the six-team tournament here with Czechia knowing a win would put them top for now, albeit Poland and Sweden have games in hand.
Sweden, second just now, will then play their first of those games in hand later on in the day in Luxembourg.
At 6pm local time (5pm UTC) in the Stade de Luxembourg, Sweden will play their fourth of five matches with the hosts, currently bottom, playing their fourth game too.
All games live on RugbyEurope.TV
Portugal v Spain Women’s game will also available on FloRugby for North America (USA, Canada, Mexico, US territories including Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), Guam, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) - https://www.florugby.com/watch
By Gary Heatly
