Women's Rugby World Cup: Wales captain Rachel Taylor looks ahead to opening game against France

Wales captain Rachel Taylor believes their opening game against France in the Women’s Rugby World Cup will be one of the biggest games they have ever played.

The tournament begins this Friday with Wales in action on the opening day – live on Sky Sports.

It will be Wales’ fifth World Cup appearance and for Taylor is looking forward to testing themselves against the best teams in the world.

“If you look at the 12 teams, I don’t think there really is an easy pool to be in,” she told Sky Sports News.

‘’We’re lucky enough to play France every year so we see them at the Six Nations so we can do a bit of homework on them and know what to expect.”

Wales have also been drawn in Pool C with Australia and South Africa – they lost to both at the 2010 World Cup - but Taylor is feeling confident about her side’s chances of progressing to the knockout stages.

‘’Australia and South Africa played in the last World Cup and we have played them before but our paths don’t cross very often so it will be exciting to get into them.’’

“They have a certain way of playing but obviously we have done some analysis on them so we’ll have to see how things go after Friday.”

The England women's rugby team will also begin their quest to win a first World Cup since 1994 when they play Samoa on Friday - the final is on August 17th in Paris.

The Women’s World Cup starts August 1st on Sky Sports 3 with live coverage of Australia v South Africa from 2:30pm, England v Samoa (4.45pm) and Wales v France (7.30pm).