Wales are unbeaten this month having defeated both South Africa and Hong Kong but will face their sternest challenge against the North Americans. And despite the quality of a side ranked third in the world Phillips is confident Wales can record a clean sweep this autumn.
“The whole autumn series has been a success,” said Phillips.
“The South Africa game was an unknown quantity for us whereas Hong Kong was more comfortable. As great as those wins were the whole autumn has been leading up to this game against Canada.
“We’ve talked about having a winning culture and we’ve certainly built up momentum. Maybe there’s a process we’ve got to go through but we don’t want to be a team who are just plucky losers.
“We want to be a team who have developed all parts of our game. I firmly believe if we can just improve certain parts of our game then we can really move forward.
“We want to get a win against Canada. We can measure how we have improved in many different ways but as natural sports people our instinct is to win.”
Phillips has made five changes for the clash at the Arms Park. The front row of Caryl Thomas, Carys Phillips and Amy Evans return, along with Siwan Lillicrap who partners Mel Clay in the second row. The only change in the backline from the team that beat Hong Kong 65-0 last Friday sees Kiera Bevan return at scrum half.
“We lost twice to Canada in the world cup last year but we have taken positive steps to improve following that experience,” he said.
“What we’ve done over this autumn series is run a smaller squad. We haven’t got 35-40 players we’ve got it down to 26 players.
“The changes we’ve made for each game has been a rotation around those 26 players. A lot of the girls who were on the bench against Hong Kong will be starting against Canada.
“Having said that everybody within the squad has contributed very well and I feel that the general standard is better. In the past game that we’ve been expected to win and win well haven’t always gone our way.”
Wales Women v Canada will be streamed live on the S4C website and Facebook page.
