Not content with winning the World Rugby women's player of the year award after her England team won the inaugural WXV1 tournament with a comprehensive 33-12 victory over the Black Ferns last night, skipper Marlie Packer has also fired a parting shot at the failure of the New Zealand public to embrace the competition.
Half empty stands greeted the players throughout the tournament, which kicked off in Wellington on October 12, with the final match at Mount Smart Stadium last night – a repeat of the stunning World Cup final – also sparsely attended.
A world record crowd of 45,000 watched the Black Ferns win the World Cup last year, but played amidst a global cost of living crisis and against the backdrop of the men’s World Cup played in France, the Kiwi public found this tournament, contested by six nations, difficult to warm to.
The Black Ferns won only one match from their three – a 70-7 thumping of Wales in Dunedin. Their other match was an 18-17 defeat to France.
“I thought the tournament itself was a really successful tournament,” Packer said.
“We want to be playing the best teams in the world and there’s no better place to do it, obviously, being here in New Zealand off the back of the World Cup - to carry on that legacy of the World Cup and that buzz around it.
“As a player, it was disappointing with the fans. The stadiums were empty – they weren’t what I was expecting.”
World Rugby say they had no option but to hold the tournament during the men’s World Cup because of their wish to capitalise on last year's women's global tournament. Clearly the competition with the men's World Cup took its toll, along, probably, with the devastating way the All Blacks lost the final to South Africa.
The Black Ferns’ less than sparkling form may also have been a factor. Last night they were quickly down 19-0 before fighting back through tries from skipper Kennedy Simon and standout replacement wing Katelyn Vaha’akolo to trail 19-12 with 30 minutes to go, but a lack of accuracy cost them dearly in the final quarter.
Vaha’akolo, 23, made her international debut this year and, after scoring five tries in five matches was named World Rugby’s women’s breakthrough player of the year.
The result means head coach Alan Bunting’s first assignment since taking over from the triumphant Sir Wayne Smith has ended in disappointment but the squad’s relative youth will be a mitigating factor.
“I’m really proud of the group and the management. From where we started to where we are now there has been a massive change,” Bunting said.
He said the biggest thing he would take away from the English performance was “the way they control the game”, and while the women in white were as physical as expected, their kicking game and set piece work shut out the more attacking minded Black Ferns.
“They’re methodical and a well-oiled engine,” Simon said.
“We needed to trust each other and let the ball go. It’s how we scored our first try and the one that followed. We’ll take a lot of learnings from this – that’s Test footy.”
England scored only one of their five tries from a rolling maul – a little different to their performance in the World Cup final when it was virtually unstoppable.
And while that defeat at Eden Park clearly stung England, Packer said it didn’t serve as motivation.
“We actually haven’t focused on that at all,” she said. “We talked about the goal we settled on 11 weeks ago when we were starting in pre-season… our target is to be hitting peak performance this week. We had PBs in the gym, PBs in the speed sessions. You start to really believe what we’ve been doing for the last 11 weeks.
“We got on the pitch and were behind the sticks and players that were there a year ago – those emotions were starting to be felt. But… we know how we want to play the game and we stuck to that.”
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