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Preview: Wales Women v Canada Women

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Rowland Phillips’ side face their toughest test of the autumn so far as they welcome Canada to Cardiff Arms Park on Saturday.

Rowland Phillips’ side face their toughest test of the autumn so far as they welcome Canada to Cardiff Arms Park on Saturday.

Wales are looking to continue their strong run having registered victories against Hong Kong and South Africa this month.

Phillips has made five changes from the 65-0 victory against Hong Kong last weekend, with Caryl Thomas, Carys Phillips and Amy Evans all coming into the front row.

His only other adjustments to the side see Siwan Lillicrap take her place in the second row while Keira Bevan returns at scrum-half.

The home side are ranked eighth in the world, but their opposition are fourth and will be looking to get their first victory of the autumn in Cardiff.

When the two met twice at the World Cup last year it was Canada who won 15-0 and 52-0, in the group stages and the fifth to eighth place play-offs.

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The Canadians will be looking to bounce back after they were downed 27-19 against England last weekend.

Seven players made their debuts for Sandro Fiorino’s side, in their first Test match of the year.

The visitors will be further buoyed after their A side beat England A 35-14 at Cobham on Wednesday.   Wales Women v Canada Women, Cardiff Arms Park, Saturday 24 November, 11.30am  The match will be shown live on the S4C website and Facebook page.   What they said

Phillips, Wales head coach, said: “The whole autumn series has been a success.

“The South Africa game was an unknown quantity for us whereas Hong Kong was more comfortable. As great as those wins were the whole autumn has been leading up to this game against Canada.

“We’ve talked about having a winning culture and we’ve certainly built up momentum. Maybe there’s a process we’ve got to go through but we don’t want to be a team who are just plucky losers.

“We want to be a team who have developed all parts of our game. I firmly believe if we can just improve certain parts of our game then we can really move forward.

“We want to get a win against Canada. We can measure how we have improved in many different ways but as natural sports people our instinct is to win.”   Key stats -Phillips’ side look like they are ready to run the ball, having scored 13 tries and conceded just one in their two autumn Tests so far.

-Last year Fiorino’s side put up 67 unanswered points across the two games between Wales and Canada at the World Cup in Ireland.   Wales: 15. Lauren Smyth, 14. Jasmine Joyce, 14. Alecs Donovan, 12. Alicia McComish, 11. Lisa Neumann, 10. Robyn Wilkins, 9. Keira Bevan, 1. Caryl Thomas, 2. Carys Phillips (c), 3. Amy Evans, 4. Siwan Lillicrap, 5. Mel Clay, 6. Manon Johnes, 7. Bethan Lewis, 8. Sioned Harries Replacements: 16. Kelsey Jones, 17. Cara Hope, 18. Cerys Hale, 19. Natalia John, 20. Gwen Crabb, 21. Ffion Lewis, 22. Hannah Jones, 23. Jess Kavanagh

Canada: TBC