Springboks Women’s assistant coach Laurian Johannes Haupt is in her happy space currently and feels excited for the upcoming Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025. The Springbok Women’s team recently completed a successful 2-week training camp held in the Western Cape, South Africa.
Telecomasia Sport had the opportunity to chat with Laurian Johannes Haupt and find out how the preparation and planning is going with 100 days to go to the World Cup. It is scheduled to take place in England between 22 August and 27 September 2025.
Reflection on the 2-week camp and their opposition they will face in the World Cup
It’s been a solid 2 weeks and the girls are just so keen to get going, they are enjoying what they doing and you can see the passion is coming through now, so Rugby World Cup 2025 here we come. We are definitely going there to compete, we would love to make the playoffs, we are putting in everything we possibly can - the resources are on board so we are just giving it our best go.
We have played Italy last year in the WXV and so we know what to expect from them, we even know what to expect from the French team, we were on tour in Europe recently and we had a great encounter at unit time with the French team so we know what we preparing for and it’s looking good.
We obviously haven’t played Brazil before but we have done the hard work, preparation and planning, so we are well prepared and ready to go for all 3 teams.
The Springboks Women’s team are drawn in pool D and take on Italy, France and Brazil. Their campaign begins against Brazil on the 24 th August at Franklins Gardens in Northampton, followed by Italy on the 31 st August in York and they will wrap the group stage with their last game against France on the 7th September.
The expectation is that they will make it out the group stage and make it to the (playoffs) quarter finals and beyond. It will be a massive achievement, given that the Last World Cup in New Zealand in 2022(World Cup 2021), they battled with results and couldn’t make it out of the group stages.
Under High performance Coach Swys De Bruin, who took over in 2024, the whole team has improved significantly in a very short space of time. The team has actually become a really well all rounded- good team that can compete with the best teams throughout the world.
The Springbok Women’s powerful scrum is a weapon
The Scrum Department is something Coach Laurian takes great pride in, she puts in a great amount of effort working with the forwards and preparing the women to the best of her ability. The standards have been raised significantly for her forward pack and as a result, she has made the Springboks women’s scrum a very powerful and dominant set piece for the team.
You know, yes we are good at scrums but I was saying to someone, we just want to be excellent at what we do (scrummaging) and we just going to get better at what we do, so its small steps for now, fine tuning the detail and doing the best we can do at scrum time.
We want to continue our good work upfront in the scrums and hopefully we will get the reward from the referees, hopefully our backline can benefit from it with front foot ball and plenty of tries in the future.
From a Teacher to becoming the first full time women’s professional coach
Coach Laurian is a qualified school teacher by profession and was a full time teacher at Athlone High school in Cape Town, South Africa. She recently gave up the classroom for the rugby field to become the first full time professional Women’s Rugby coach at National level with the Springboks.
Its special being the first full time Women’s Coach, but the teaching carries on all the time, I’m just teaching on the field now.
The beauty of it is, yes there is a little bit of a classroom aspect as well to coaching but the field work is where my passion is now and I’m really happy that I get to live out my dream on the field with the Springboks.
Laurian’s goals for her future and of a word of Inspiration to other aspiring Women’s rugby coaches, players and fans
If there is an opportunity for to me become the Springboks Women’s head coach in the future, yes absolutely I will take it, why not? it will be a massive opportunity for any person.
My aspirations will always be, to be the head coach in the future, but I’m not saying it’s going to happen post world cup 2025, but you never know. Ultimately, I dream really big, but the sky is the limit for me, so one step at a time for me at the moment.
Anything is possible within the women’s rugby space, we want women to be involved, to feel the love for this game and the passion. Women’s Rugby is for everyone regardless of your background and where you come from, so come out and support us at our Springbok games.
The Springboks Women’s team's next assignment will be Canada in a 2 match series in July. Both these games will be curtain raiser games to the 4-time World Cup Champions - The Springbok’s Men team at Loftus Versveld and Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium respectively.
There is also a possible two match home series planned against New Zealand, which hopefully will be confirmed soon.
