It’s fitting York is the venue for Saturday’s Wallaroos-USA quasi-elimination game as both teams prepare to battle for their World Cup lives.
When you walk into the historic town, the remnants of past battles and eras define the region, as the city walls and forts that protected the area since the Roman era remain intact in certain parts.
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There’s a mix of Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Viking influence as the era becomes a hotbed of history.
The Wallaroos and the USA Eagles will seek to write their own history with victory on Saturday.
Since the draw came out, this has been positioned as one of the most important games of the group stages of the World Cup.
With England’s dominance and Samoa still finding their feet back in the World Cup, it was always set to be a straight shootout for second place. Australia’s chances aren’t necessarily over with defeat, but they’d have to beat a Red Roses side that has only lost once in the 2022s (2022 World Cup Final v NZ).
"Australia is going to be our big game. Obviously, the goal is to make it to a final, but our final is actually this weekend too,” USA prop Charli Jacoby said, reflecting what it means to the Americans.
It’s the team’s similarities rather than their differences that make the contest so intriguing.
Both teams have opted for foreign coaches, with the USA, in particular, drawing on Australian expertise in former assistant Sione Fukofuka.
Both have a distinct Sevens influence across their backline, whether it's players who started in the condensed code like Georgina Friedrichs or current players like Ilona Maher and Tia Hinds.
Both also have recent enough scarring losses to the other side that have them on guard, whether it was Australia conceding a big lead in 2024 or the USA going down in Canberra in 2025.
“I've reflected back on AAMI Park, a game that was quite frustrating in terms of we kind of took the foot off the pedal a little bit,” Wallaroos winger Desiree Miller said on the 2024 loss.
“You don't want to take the foot off the pedal, give them an inch, they'll take a mile, and that's to any team, so just making sure that we keep to our processes, and when we're ahead to, you know, keep it simple and not get complacent or doing the simple things right.”
"We had a pretty good first half and then second half we went away from a few core principles that were positive for us in the first half, and that put us under pressure,” USA coach Fukofuka responded about the defeat earlier in the year.
“We know Australia has strong players and kicked really well in that game and we’ve worked really hard in the last couple of months to drop our penalty count.”
With the rise of tension also comes the rise in profile on the game, with tickets sold out more than 24 hours before the contest.
The profile of Maher also adds to this, while Miller herself finds herself growing at a rapid rate in her own right, with nearly seven thousand new Instagram followers in the past week.
“I think you definitely know that there's a presence and I think it sparks that fire in you that you want to go ‘hang on a sec, look at us, like, look what we can do'. We're out here to do it better and we're here to do it faster and more in a more exciting way,” second-row Michaela Leonard said.
“So there's girls in our group that probably should have a lot more recognition and I guess more of a name for themselves and what they do out there.
“But I think at the end of the day, it's really exciting what those girls are doing for women's sport and rugby as a whole is huge.
“If we get someone clicking on their links and following through to watch a game or buying a ticket to come out and watch the World Cup, whether it's because they want to see Ilona Maherr, whether it's because they want to see Desiree Miller, I think as someone watching women's rugby and that's exactly what we want.”
But at the end of the 80 minutes, there’s only one thing that matters,
“There could be zero people there but we’re going toe-to-toe with the other team that we knew we were doing this as soon as that draw was made,” Wallaroos assistant Chris Delooze said.
“There could be zero or there could be 50,000. The job stays the same.”
