Colombia to represent South America at WXV 3

Colombia defeated Brazil 30-19 at Estadio Cincuentenario in Medellín on Sunday to become the fifth team to qualify for WXV 3.

Las Tucanes won 54-42 on aggregate, following their 24-23 win over As Yaras in the first leg of the play-off earlier in the week, and they will now join Fiji, Ireland, Kazakhstan and Kenya and the loser of the play-off between Italy and Spain in the WXV 3 line-up in Dubai in October.

Outside-centre Leidy Soto scored a hat-trick, the first Colombian player to do so in the team’s four-year test history, and number eight Maribel Mestra also crossed As Yaras’ line.

Maria Arzuaga kicked two conversions and a couple of penalties against a Brazil team that briefly led on aggregate scores across the two legs when scrum-half Luiza Campos darted over for the first try of the match.

By the time Brazil’s dominant scrum earned them two late penalty tries though, Colombia had the game and a place in WXV 3 sewn up.

“We are super happy and proud. We worked from minute one to minute 80,” said Soto at the end of the game.

The Sevens Stadium will host WXV 3, which will be played across the weekends of 14, 21 and 28 October.

Having secured back-to-back wins over Brazil, Colombia's rating will be boosted to 45.60 points in the World Rugby Women’s Rankings powered by Capgemini when they are officially updated at 12 noon on Monday (BST), enough to see them replace Portugal in 25th place.

Brazil started the week fractionally ahead of Thailand in the rankings but following the loss of 0.42 points in exchange, they will slip one place to 48th.

Japan’s emphatic 44-12 win in the first of their two-match series against hosts Spain on Sunday was a brilliant result for the Sakura 15s who had lost heavily and failed to score a single point when the teams met twice before more than two decades ago.

Century of wins for Black Ferns

Elsewhere, New Zealand and Australia got the better of North American opposition with the Black Ferns confirming their place in WXV 1 as a result of their 52-21 victory over Canada in front of a record Canadian crowd of 10,092 in Ottawa.

It was a significant result for other reasons too, as the Black Ferns became the fastest team to bring up a century of test wins.

England became the first team to bring up a century of wins in 2006 but it took them two matches more than the Black Ferns’ tally of 117.

Australia also went a long way to securing the top-three finish in the Pacific Four Series needed to qualify for WXV 1 with an equally emphatic 58-17 victory over the USA in the first match of the doubleheader at TD Place Stadium.

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In terms of the rankings, New Zealand will increase their rating by two-thirds of a point but that won't be enough for them to become number one in the world, although England will only be 0.69 points clear.

Australia will pick up 1.30 points for their victory over the USA but will remain in fifth place with still a sizeable gap between themselves and Canada. USA will stay unchanged in seventh despite the loss.

The final round of the World Rugby Pacific Four Series 2023 kicks off Friday, 14 July at 16:00 local time (GMT-4) with New Zealand facing USA before Canada take on Australia at 19:00 at TD Place Stadium.

Friday's matches will be available to stream via the World Rugby website where a local broadcast deal is not in place.