Wallaroos winger Desiree Miller is hoping a strong performance on Sunday (AEST) against Canada can fuel their push towards competing with the top nations in the world.
The Australians will head into their Pacific Four opener looking for their maiden win over the World Cup finalists after two heavy defeats in 2025.
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Canada defeated them 45-7 in last year’s series, before replicating their effort almost identically in a 46-5 victory to knock Australia out in the World Cup quarter-finals.
Miller was the lone Australian try-scorer on that day in Bristol, using the motivation from that game as they look to end their eight games without a win against the Canadians.
“It's always a piece of motivation that we need to use to be better. We want to be the top teams and some of those results were pretty crushing last year, particularly in that quarterfinal,” Miller told reporters.
“That fuels my fire and I'm sure it fuels a lot of the other girls' fire to go out on the weekend and produce a better result than what we did previously.
“...I had the strong belief that they could have been in England in that final if there was a team to do it with them, it’d be them. So it's going to be a bit of a challenge for us this week, but I still have faith in us.”
It comes as the Wallaroos begin the build towards the home World Cup in 2029, already locked in to face top sides New Zealand and England as part of their expanded Test calendar.
“I don't think we've spoken about it collectively as a group or sat down, but I've had conversations with multiple people and we're already so excited for it, but we know that there's a job to do in the four years leading up,” Miller said.
The outside back will reach the 25-cap mark for the Wallaroos with selection on Sunday, continuing her journey after a steady rise in Rugby Union.
“It's my fourth year with the Wallaroos, and I think that's officially longer in this space than it has been since I started playing rugby, so it's pretty surreal and definitely a lot of growth on this side of that," she reflects.
“I still think my debut was the other week, and it's just been a whirlwind since then. I think it's really special, particularly in the Wallaroo space, hitting 25 caps is such a milestone compared to teams like England who have over 100 caps, and that's the milestone they celebrate.
“I think reflecting back, my debut was in 2023, and the fact that I've hit 25, or about in line to hopefully this week, it just shows how far the game's come.”
