Canada women began their two-game European tour with a highly merited win, shutting out Wales 14-0 at The Knoll, Neath, in a match for world ranking points.

Skipper Megan Pakulis led the way with tries either side of half time, but it was the Ravens’ unyielding defence that most impressed.

Canada women’s head coach, Matty Barron, commented: ”We’ve had a great week in camp and that was the real test we needed. We pride ourselves on defence, we want to be physical to be able to compete with the likes of Wales. We want to show we should be at the World Cup.

“We lost out to Fiji in the World Series and the only way we are going to compete with those sort of teams is to play in games like these. Tamisha Toussaint exemplified the way we want to be, she’s tough and uncompromising. A lot of these girls are self-funded, to come here and play like this, we should all be very proud of them.

“Tell England to pick the phone up, we’ll take anyone on and I’m sure these girls will do the Canada shirt proud.”

Canada took the lead with a length of the field set which Dani Franada finished off by slipping through to score, Natasha Naismith with her sole conversion.

Wales’s Leanne Burnell was twice stopped short of the line on the final tackle as the visitors showed their defensive resolve, before Pakulis bundled her way over to make it 10-0 at the break. At the start of the second period, she again took on the Wales defensive line to register the only other score, after which the Ravens’ defence dominated, continuing to snuff out home chances. 

That was Wales’s last competitive match before travelling to their first World Cup in October.

“We got a little bit panicked in the second half trying to chase the scoreboard,” said Wales women’s head coach, Tom Brindle. “We knew, when we started this journey, what the challenge was going to be and we need to set our own standards. There are probably about three or spots available for players to make that plane to the World Cup.

“We’ll do a review, Canada have been to two World Cups and were a very physical side which will benefit us. We need to put more international games in place.”

Canada now face Scotland next weekend.

The game was played to NRLW rules as part of Wales’ RLWC26 preparation, with each half 35 minutes long.