Fresh faces Miller and Wyrwas light up WXV 1 opener

Desiree Miller certainly wasn’t expecting to get subbed on as fast as she did in Australia’s 42-7 loss to England. After only 18 minutes of the game at Sky Stadium, the Wallaroos winger found herself watching on as team mate Maya Stewart was being carted off, realising that she was about to get thrust onto the big stage of WXV 1.

“It was obviously very exciting,” the 22-year-old said post-match.

“I came out a bit earlier than expected but the more the better. I was really glad to step out with the team, it was a good vibe and everyone was encouraging me and that gave me a lot of confidence.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ruck was Ella Wyrwas, enjoying her first start in an England jersey. The Saracens scrum-half had a far more traditional route to being on the Sky Stadium turf, taking her opportunity after the injury-enforced withdrawal of Lucy Packer from the English squad. Stewart’s misfortune was in the lead up to Wrywas’s moment, finishing off a try that was started by a Jess Breach break down the wing.

“It was good to get a proper run out today,” Wyrwas said, before humbly crediting Breach with doing most of the work for her try.

“She didn’t have to give it to me, she’d done all the work.”

One thing that cannot be taken away from 24-yeqar-old Wyrwas was a lovely jinking run from the base of a ruck near the Australian line, which led to a slick try to Megan Jones.

“I’m a big instinct player. If I see something, I go for it. Sometimes it doesn’t work out, sometimes it’s special, so happy it pulled off. Playing with my gut and playing a quick game works well when the forwards are giving me good ball, which they were doing tonight, so I had to take that opportunity.”

Both Miller and Wrywas have the ability to showcase the potential that the WXV concept has, to bring players through the ranks and expose them to test rugby on a more regular basis. Despite the loss, Miller said that regularly meeting the likes of England will only improve her and the team’s performances.

“Obviously England are a very tough team, they have great structures. But once I got my first touch of the ball, I was like ‘OK, this is a game of rugby, I’ve done this before’, so I just had to focus on what I knew.”

“I definitely thought that even though we were down a player it didn’t really seem that way. So, we stuck to our structures and our D just to stay in the game. We know what we did wrong and we know what we did right…so it’s about focusing on us this next week.”

Wyrwas said the mood post-match was a happy one in the English dressing room.

“We had two good warm up games that have put us in a really good position to attack more. There were a lot of work ons but I think tonight we’ve finally shown in this game our versatility and our strengths. We’re in a really good place.”

England now move on to play Canada next Friday night in Dunedin, before a highly anticipated World Cup final rematch with New Zealand the following week in Auckland.

Australia play France and then Wales, with the likelihood of more fresh legs on the field like Miller and Wayrwas gaining important test rugby experience high.