1. Scotland make a statement

Despite shutouts from Australia and France against Samoa and Italy respectively, the most impressive performance of Rugby World Cup 2025's first Super Saturday arguably came from Scotland.

With Group B expected to be a three-way fight between Scotland, Wales and Canada for two places in the quarterfinals, Bryan Easson's team put in a near-complete performance against Wales, scoring six tries, including a hat-trick from wing Francesca McGhie, part of an exciting Scotland back line.

2. Harvard professor swaps campus for camera

Teaching at one of the world's most preeminent universities in the world hasn't stopped Greg Sabin from combining two of his other passions: rugby and photography.

Greg, who teaches accounting and finance at Harvard, has been a sports photographer for 10 years, covering a handful of professional teams in the USA.

A former rugby player himself, Greg starting capturing the sporting action when his youngest son's American football team needed a photographer in high school.

“The next three years I volunteered at Harvard as the basketball team photographer, being a professor by day and a photographer by night," said Greg, who is the Italy team photographer at RWC 2025.

“I’m debating when’s the right time to retire, when I’m done teaching I will 100% do this full time.”

3. Australia and Halse continue record-breaking weekend

On Friday in Sunderland, the biggest crowd in the history of the Women's Rugby World Cup, 42,723, were treated to a slice of history themselves, as replacement back Emily Scarratt became the first England player to appear at five Women's RWC tournaments.

On Saturday, it was Australia's turn to rewrite the record books. Not only did they record their biggest-ever win in the tournament (73-0 against Samoa) but full-back Caitlyn Halse, less that three weeks short of her 19th birthday, became the youngest woman to represent her country on the biggest stage. She celebrated by scoring two tries.

4. Joseph to miss New Zealand opener

Maia Joseph is no ordinary scrum-half. She is the daughter of former All Black and Japan coach Jamie Joseph, and when she's not playing top-level rugby she is studying for a degree in medicine and surgery.

But the 23-year-old will have to wait to follow in the footsteps of her father by playing at the Rugby World Cup, after a hamstring injury ruled her out of New Zealand's opening game of RWC 2025 against Spain in York on Sunday.

5. Northampton knitters show the way

Fans making their way from Northampton train station to Franklin's Gardens for Sunday's pool-stage double header will find the route lined with Rugby-World-Cup-themed... knitting.

Christine Carr, Chair of the Northampton County Federation of Women's Institutes (WIs), brought forward the idea saying that she wanted to create a community feel around the tournament.

“In the last 12 months it's sort of been like a job you just get on with it but actually, in the last month, I've started to get quite emotional about it," said Christine.
 
“When you walk it and see what everybody's achieved and how much the community has come out and said how
much nicer it has made the town look, how it's made it feel like a community, that's what we wanted." 

After 600 balls of wool were purchased by the WI, generosity came in forms of anonymous donors, members contributing their own wool and things such as artificial grass being donated to bring the route to life.
 
Member of the WI will be at the Gardens in green cowboy hats when England come to town to play Samoa on 30 August.

6. Schell steals the show with second-half sextet

On any other day, Australia's Desiree Miller and Francesca McGhie of Scotland would have been the headline acts for scoring impressive hat-tricks in their teams' victories against Samoa and Wales respectively.

But the day belonged to Julia Schell, who scored a double hat-trick in the space of just 22 second-half minutes as Canada overwhelmed Fiji.

"Before I scored my first try, a guy over there [pointing] said he would give me 200 bucks [pounds]," said the full-back. "I’m not very good at math but I need to go talk to him probably.”

Incredibly, Schell fell two tries short of the Women's Rugby World Cup record of Portia Woodman (NZL), who scored eight against Hong Kong in 2017.