The fifth place play-off will be a North American affair after both USA and Canada stormed past Ireland and Scotland respectively, scoring plenty of tries in the process.

IRELAND v USA
By Nathaniel John

USA gained revenge for their defeat in the pool stages with an emphatic 40-3 defeat of Ireland at Surrey Sports Park on Wednesday to guarantee a top six finish at Women's Rugby World Cup 2010.

Victoria Folayan and Amy Daniels both scored a brace of tries with Vanesha McGee also touching down to set up a fifth place play-off with North American rivals Canada on Sunday after they came through against Scotland.

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With Ireland, who had come out on top 22-12 in their Pool B encounter on day two, controlling the early exchanges, USA managed to score a try with the first real attack by their backs through wing Folayan. The ball being spread wide to the powerful wing, who outpaced two Irish defenders before handing off a third on her way to the line.

The try instilled confidence into the USA, who scored their second midway through the first half following a scrum deep into the Irish 22. From the scrum, the Women Eagles set up a rolling maul which Ireland brought down illegally, allowing referee Sébastien Minery to award a penalty try.

Christy Ringgenberg added the conversion, but then on the half hour mark Ireland full back Niamh Briggs kicked her side back into contention with a well-struck 25-metre penalty to reduce the deficit to 14-3.

However, the Irish joy was short-lived as five minutes before the break centre Daniels crashed through for her first and USA's third try of the afternoon, bringing the score to 21-3 at the interval.

Ireland came out in the second half a rejuvenated side and spent the first 20 minutes camped inside the USA half with all the possession, but little to show for it on the scoreboard.

This would proved costly when they were punished after losing possession in the USA 22, the Women's Eagles quickly broke using their backs with Folayan bursting through two tackles before offloading to Daniels just over the halfway line. The centre then had the easier task of running in the try to score next to the posts, despite the Ireland defence chasing back.

With minutes remaining, USA scored their fifth try through the impressive Folayan. After a series of scrums in the Irish 22, USA spread the ball blind to the wing, who ran around the on-rushing defence to extend her side's lead to 33-3.

Just two minutes later, the Women's Eagles completed their scoring with their final try of the afternoon from replacement wing McGee. Again orchestrated by their impressive backline, captain Ashley English exploited an overlap to find the flying wing to score her second.

Ireland must now regroup for a seventh place play-off against Scotland on Sunday.

POST MATCH REACTION

USA coach Kathy Flores: "In the England match, the players saw what they can do, what we have been telling them all along and we had to keep that going. We didn't really prepare any differently to the first Ireland match. As a coach you always want the perfect game but I am very proud of them.

"The Canada game is going to be bragging rights for North America. The players need to rest and then we're going to try and get away and have some fun with the players."

USA captain Ashley English: "We are very pleased with our game. We stuck to our game plan and we got the ball wide and we ended up with a lot of points on the board, very pleased. Our set pieces were good and we went forward and had good ball handling today. And we got our penalty count down which was really good."

On avenging loss to Ireland: "It's not often you get a chance to redo something in life and today we got a chance to do it and we did it better this time."

On facing Canada next: "Every game is different. We have played Canada a lot last year so we know some of their tricks, but they know some of our tricks. We'll just have to see what happens on the day and hopefully we will come out on top."

Ireland coach Philip Doyle: "It didn't go our way, the girls' legs are getting a little bit tired this week. America, to their credit, were pretty, in their words, awesome.

"Their power in the scrum was fantastic and they put us under tremendous pressure right from the start. Joy Neville at the back had a lot of problems trying to get that ball out. A lot of occasions we got it, but they were just too powerful for us today. You've got to call a spade a spade; they were just too powerful on the day.

On facing Scotland next: "We play them every year and they're a great team in themselves. To be honest, just coming into this tournament I wanted a one place improvement on eight, four years ago. Now it's our little final, and we will go out and endeavour to get that seventh. Scotland we know very well and they no us well so it's going to be a good game."

Ireland captain Fiona Coghlan: "USA were the better team on the day, there's no doubt about that, they deserved their win. They have serious pace on the wings and they were more physical than us.

On facing Scotland next: "They are close rivals. It'll be another tough game, but we have to rest now and get ourselves ready for that. We want to go out and look for a higher ranking. We deserve to be in the middle group, so I think we definitely deserve a higher ranking on the performances we've had before today."

CANADA 41-0 SCOTLAND
By Francesca Waite

Inspired by a tremendous forward effort and some clinical finishing out wide, Canada stormed past Scotland, 41-0 at the Surrey Sports Park, to keep alive their hopes of finishing the Women's Rugby World Cup in fifth place.

In providing a repeat display of their pool success against the Scots, the Canadians booked a mouth-watering final match of the tournament against staunch rivals USA, who beat Ireland 40-3.

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The Scots will face Six Nations opponents Ireland in a battle for seventh place.

Spurred on by their disappointing loss against France, Canada started the match with intent. Barely 60 seconds were on the clock when number 8 Kelly Russell broke through from her own 22 with a strong run and after several raids at the line wing Heather Moyse slipped over to score the first try of the game.

Less than two minutes later, Olympic bobsleigh gold-medallist Moyse doubled the lead, again unchallenged by the Scottish defence, and with Anna Schnell twice successful with the extras the Canadians found themselves 14-0 up in seven minutes.

Startled to life, Scotland rallied and pushed on deep into Canadian territory through wing Katy Green but the resistance was short-lived as Moyse's fellow wing Maria Gallo crossed for a 19-0 lead. The half ended on a dour note as Scotland fly half Tanya Griffith was stretchered off after an unfortunate collision with Canada centre Sarah Ulmer.

Canada started the second half much as they had the first, driving on through the forwards and undeterred by their resilient opponents. Both sides held their shape well to entertain the generous crowd but it was not long before Mandy Marchak crossed for the Canadians to put the game beyond doubt.

Cheryl Phillips' magnificent try put further daylight between the teams and Schnell notched another two effortless points to bring the score to 35-0.

To their credit, Scotland never stopped battling and Phillips' second try came only after a terrific battle metres from the try line, but the final score of 41-0 underlined the chasm in class between the two sides.

POST MATCH REACTION

Canada coach John Long: "The girls came in after the disappointment of France and said that they wanted to go out on a high and I think that they showed what some of them are capable of today. It's a team performance and those girls wanted to go out as a team and play everything together and that's what we did."

On facing USA next: "I think both us and USA have worked hard to get into this position and whoever plays well on the day will get the position, hopefully it's us. We've played USA seven or eight times in the last year or so, so we're very familiar with one another and you can guarantee it will be a big battle and that fifth spot will be important to both teams. Those girls are very adamant that they want to go out on a high."

Canada captain Leslie Cripps: "I'm really happy, it was a solid team performance started by the forwards and finished off by the backs on so many occasions. We will have to up the stakes in physicality [in our next game], USA are always up for the game and we will have to be bigger and better.

"With where we are in the tournament [fifth] is the top ranking we can get so we want that fifth place ranking for sure. Again, if we come out and have a good performance, that's what's going to be the just rewards for ourselves. We don't want to win playing ugly rugby. We want to play well and have a good team performance and that will be good enough for us."

Scotland coach Gary Parker: "I think it was disappointing. We caught a Canadian side who were smarted from not making the semi finals. The one thing about them is that they are a good side when they are on the front foot and they showed that today.

"From our point of view, we gave them a couple of scores early which gave them that momentum. The only thing I can say is the girls gave them the momentum and they made tackles at the end.

"We took a bit of a hit in injuries, but all credit to Canada, they played well, they moved the ball around and ultimately the Canadians scores came out of the fact that we've got to make tackles. They used the space and showed their clinical side."

Scotland captain Lynne Reid: "Massively disappointed, individually and on behalf of the team, but I think certainly it's the first game we've come out and been disappointed with our entire performance.

"I think respect to Canada, in terms of their performance today; they put in a good performance on the back of the defeat from France. They came out physical upfront, and while they made a lot of errors in the back, they certainly capitalised on our errors as well."