IRELAND will face New Zealand, Japan and Spain in the pool stage of next year’s Women’s Rugby World Cup in England.
The fixtures will be confirmed next Tuesday for the tournament which runs from August 22 to September 17, 2025.
Ireland have faced all three of their Pool C opponents in recent years, only getting the better of defending world champions New Zealand last month at the WXV1 tournament in Vancouver.
They toured Japan in 2022 and beat Spain in the WXV3 decider in 2023.
Knowing Scott Bemand’s side will face the Black Ferns again has energised co-captain Sam Monaghan.
She said: “Really exciting, the group is quite familiar in terms of teams we’ve played in the last few years.
“We’ve just beaten New Zealand so we can take confidence from that.
“Japan have kicked on, they had a decent WXV recently and Spain, that was a hard win for us last year.
“And of course New Zealand — I’m buzzing to play them and I’m sure they’ll be up for the rematch.
“Belief is massive. The group is so resilient.
“The hard work put in off the pitch showed in the three performances in the WXV.”
WORLD CUP —
- POOL A: England, Australia, USA, Samoa.
- POOL B: Canada, Scotland, Wales, Fiji.
- POOL C: New Zealand, Ireland, Japan, Spain.
- POOL D: France, Italy, South Africa, Brazil.