After training with Samoa during the day, captaining her team, and fine-tuning her breakdown work, Sui Pauaraisa would FaceTime her three children back home in New Zealand and check they were ready for school. The four or so weeks Samoa have been in England is the longest time she’s been away from her family.
“I can’t wait to see my kids,” Pauaraisa told ESPN after their final pool match with the United States. “I just want a hug; I just want to kiss them.”
The Samoa squad land back home on Wednesday and will go their separate ways, not knowing when they’ll see each other again.
Pauaraisa will get back to Auckland before flying on to her home in Christchurch. She’ll be there to welcome her children home from school. And then on Thursday, she’ll be back to work in her day job as a clinical administrator.
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It’s a brutal schedule, but it’s the reality for so many players at this World Cup. Some have had to take unpaid leave. Others have borrowed and crowdfunded their way to England. And they’ve left behind loved ones, all with the goal of representing their country and inspiring future generations.
“That’s the sacrifice that I have made, you know, in the blue jersey. I want to be someone that they look up to,” Pauaraisa said. “I want them to grow up and be strong women, so be kind of like a role model for them.”
It’s a World Cup of legacy but also deeply uneven playing fields, and housed within the disparity between the “have” and “have nots” is inspiration interspersed with uncertainty.
It’s nothing new. In a sport where there’s so much self-interest and the elite occasionally throw crumbs down from their lofty table, there is a vast disparity between teams.
But the hope is, this World Cup will be the one to trigger change and close the gap. For those protagonists at the heart of this competition, however, they’ve played their part in three glorious weeks of rugby so far, head back to reality, several facing unknown futures in the game, not knowing when their next match will be or if they’ll be able to carve out a wage from the game they love.
Mind the gap
We’ve seen full-time, elite teams face groups of amateur players. The amateurs have won hearts and minds, but this is a World Cup which hopes to trigger long-term change and provide a platform for growth.
There are disparities everywhere.
Take contracts: England’s 32 players are on full-time deals, and get a match fee in the region of £1,500, a source has confirmed to ESPN.
Wales, Ireland and Scotland all have contracted players, the latter being for the time being, at least with about half out of contract at the end of the World Cup. New Zealand have 45 full-time contracts, while Australia’s players are on deals and have wages boosted by daily bonuses. Players from the U.S. are contracted through to September, not all of Italy’s squad are on deals while Japan’s are paid an allowance per day.
We’re not talking mega bucks here, the men’s wages far outweigh anything in the women’s game. Yet even at these levels, teams like Samoa and Canada had to crowdfund their way to the World Cup.
Canada! They’re one of the favourites. They put together Mission: Win the Rugby World Cup 2025 to help raise CAN$1m (£540,000) for their journey to England.
World Rugby highlights how it funded the 16 teams’ journeys to England and covers the cost of their stay in country. But the question, of course, revolves around what happens when the music stops.
“Us raising the profile of women’s rugby in countries around the world and working with them to raise profile is the first step to then being able to increase investment and commercial support and unlocking funding from governments, which is the focus for us in terms of financial sustainability over the next four years,” World Rugby’s chief of women’s rugby Sally Horrox said.
It is going to be a jarring experience for so many players now the pool stages are over. We saw the emotion of Samoa’s head coach Mataafa Ramsey Tomokino and captain Pauaraisa after the England match; the joy they had at the three points they secured from the tee. Mataafa Ramsey was visibly emotional as he recalled the applause and welcome his team received when they stepped off the coach at Northampton.
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Pauaraisa sat alongside him, welling up, and gave him a hug at the end of his passionate plea for further support for Samoa.
“I had doubts about being able to get here financially, because I have a mortgage to pay … You know, we aren’t contracted players and I didn’t know how it would work,” Samoan centre Fa’asua Makisi said.
“I have seven siblings, and I’m the older sister so I have to run them around to their sports and their school activities and I didn’t know if leaving would be manageable for my family. But as always, and as I anticipated, Mum said, ‘There’s no way you’re not going. We will sort everything over here.’
“She just took that off my shoulders so that I had the courage to come with no worries and no stress. I’m truly grateful for mum.”
Back to reality
After the high of playing in a World Cup, it will be back to the day job for many players. Brazil’s Sama Vergara is a tattoo artist. Canada’s Olivia DeMerchant is a firefighter. Manuqalo Komaitai is with the Irish Guards. South Africa’s Nomsai Mokwai is an emergency care nurse. Samoa’s Drenna Falaniko is a roofer.
Then comes the question of legacy, but also this incredible gap in the players’ lives.
The question for those heading home is: What next? For those from amateur backgrounds, this could be the highlight of their careers. Even for those who have played professionally, nothing has matched this World Cup.
“I don’t think I will ever again have such a joyful experience through rugby,” Japan’s Kanako Kobayashi said.
And for those who are in the twilight of their career, the focus turns to post-rugby and legacy.
“The goal we set for ourselves is to leave a legacy inspiring younger players and raising awareness about rugby in our country, where it is not very well-known,” Spain’s Laura Delgado said.
Delgado talked earlier in the tournament about having to lie to her parents to pursue her rugby dream. She earned a grant as an honorary student at Madrid University for her master’s degree. But her true motivation — unbeknownst to her parents — was to play for SANSE. She has been moved by the messages of support she’s received from back home as they united behind the Leonas.
For Samoa, who so many have taken to their hearts, they hope the new global calendar will give them room to grow.
Mataafa Ramsey will take on a new role as general manager high performance at the Samoa Rugby Union.
“We’ve got to do stuff in our region,” he said. “There’s some funding coming in from Pacific Coast Sport, as an example, so that we can create a Pacific competition. We need to mirror something like what the Six Nations have. So that’s us, Fiji, Samoa, Australia, New Zealand, who we’ve got in our back corner. We need to start doing that, and then maybe it branches out to an Asian country as well. I think if we can do that and get into professional spaces, then it’ll be much better.”
Over in Brazil they want to continue shining the light on South American rugby. “In South America, like in the men’s game; we have a potential in rugby,” Brazil head coach Emiliano Caffera said.
“We want to be the first country to pave the road for women’s rugby in South America.
“Now what we need is more games, more tournaments, more support. We play two or three games a year; I want to play nine, 10, 12 games a year. I hope we are going to be in the next Rugby World Cup.”
But for those staying, there’s uncertainty on the horizon for them too. Just because they’re in the knockouts, it doesn’t mean some of Scotland’s contingent can escape the niggling concern of what post-World Cup life looks like. They head into Sunday’s quarterfinal with England unsure of whether they’ll have a contract after the tournament.
In reaching the quarterfinals though, such a feat can hopefully usher in positive change back home.
Take South Africa, whose incredible 29-24 victory over Italy booked their quarterfinal spot. This is a team who were prevented from competing in the 2017 World Cup by their own union due to poor results, while the men have gone on to win the 2019 and 2023 World Cups.
There are inspirational stories everywhere you look, but they are united behind wanting to change the sport for women in South Africa. “It feels like a watershed moment,” Babalwa Latsha said. “We’ve been building up to it for the past three, four years, many sacrifices have been made and many tears have been cried for South African women’s rugby.
“It’s almost a moment that is like a lighthouse, if I may allude to that, where it illuminates a light so bright that it shines across the whole horizon. It’s a brand-new path that has been created.”
And though the U.S. are out, Ilona Maher will stay on and watch the rest of the competition. “I hope all the girls get to take it to new heights,” Maher said. “I hope we’ll be there in the quarterfinal but we’ll see. I’ll be watching all the games and stay on and watch them. It’s too cool to not go to the knockout stage of the World Cup. It’s sold out at the Allianz [for the final] and I want to be a part of that.” As the tournament progresses and we head towards the final on Sept. 27, for players from eight of the teams, it will be back to the reality of daily life. “If you always have a dream to play rugby, you got to do the little things first to get into the big things,” Fiji’s Kolora Lomani said. “We’ve been thrilled by mums, office workers, teachers, tattooists and firefighters the past three weeks. But all are World Cup players. “New records have been set by the competition and by us,” Latsha said. “New pathways have been established, and also a validation of dreams for many of us in our group, for some even a revival of dreams that had perhaps been lying dormant.” Information from ESPN’s James Regan contributed to this story.
