Why it's better for the game if the Black Ferns don't win the World Cup
To love women’s rugby is to love the Black Ferns.
Their style, their flair and their big personalities are all hallmarks of the outstanding brand of winning rugby they’ve brought to the game since their debut in 1990.
But they’ve also brought something else – success without support.
Surely no other team has dominated a sport quite like the Black Ferns have for so long, with such poor backing from those who run the game in their own country – a team so good, they achieve despite not because of the help they receive.
It’s true that since their disastrous European tour last year things have improved significantly.
With the prospect of embarrassment and an early exit at a home World Cup on the cards, New Zealand Rugby (NZR) acted swiftly.
In came fulltime payment for players, a proper test match programme leading up to the World Cup and a procession of world-class coaches.
Despite looking clueless at times against England and France last year the Black Ferns are now real contenders to win this World Cup.
Their success would surely be a fairy-tale story– zero to hero within a year?
But while there is no taking away from the incredible talent of the players who’ve worn the Black Ferns shirt over the last thirty years, their win would send a terrible signal to unions around the world, many of whom are already having to be convinced that investment in women’s rugby is worth their time.
For a Black Ferns win says you don’t need to invest or support in your women’s team, your players or your programme until you absolutely have to, and even then, if the players are naturally talented enough, you might just get by on doing it all at the last minute.
So while I love the Black Ferns and everything they stand for – I hope they don’t win this World Cup.
It may sound churlish to hold past sins against New Zealand Rugby now that things are changing, but the men in blazers running the game– and they are, of course, mostly men – deserve little else.
For, from the inception of the Black Ferns, originally called the Gal Blacks, support from New Zealand Rugby has been lacking.
If that was understandable given the era in which the team emerged when hardly any women’s teams garnered support from official governing bodies, disinterest prevailed right until recent years as women’s rugby accelerated elsewhere.
Having paid for themselves to compete at the 1991 World Cup, New Zealand Rugby refused to let the team take part in 1994.
When the Black Ferns remerged at the 1998 World Cup, after playing just eight matches in seven years, they reminded everyone what they had been missing with superb performances to lift the trophy.
That was an incredible team which featured standout talent like Vanessa Cootes, Farah Palmer, Louisa Wall and Anna Richards, but despite returning home champions, they would be given little support in the years ahead with scant opportunities to play for their country and little to no structures in place to capitalise on their success.
Averaging just two games a year in that era, it’s remarkable that the Black Ferns went on to win the next three World Cups.
The fact that the great Anna Richards ended a career that saw her play in five World Cups, with just 49 caps, is a reminder of just how little support went into giving the team any sort of meaningful test programme.
And for decades there was little pressure for anything to change – with the team seemingly able to win at will, and with investment in women’s rugby being seen as a drain on financial resources rather than something that might offer a return in the long run or indeed the right thing to do for a national governing body, whose duties are to grow their sport for everyone, no matter their gender.
There are a litany of other examples of how at times it has seemed like New Zealand Rugby was actually actively acting against its women’s players.
When the women’s sevens game emerged in the 1990s no support was forthcoming.
Instead, the country’s top players organised themselves and secured private funding, competing as the ‘Wild Ducks’ initially and later as the ‘New Zealand Aotearoa Maori’. They won an array of titles around the world.
While an official New Zealand women’s sevens team was established in 2000, support for the team was totally inconsistent. The national women’s sevens championships was removed from the domestic calendar for several years from 2003 with no structure in place to support the game.
It took the arrival of the World Cup Sevens for women in 2009 and a strong directive from the IRB for things to change, and though the Black Ferns Sevens team is now hugely successful, the bulk of its money comes from High Performance Sport New Zealand and not from its governing body.
In 2010, just months before a World Cup in London, the union axed the women’s National Provincial Championships, something the then Black Ferns captain Melissa Ruscoe called ‘a kick in the guts’.
They won the World Cup anyway.
The Black Ferns did get support in the lead up to that World Cup, but it didn’t come from their own governing body – it came instead from the RFU, who paid for the players to come and play England in 2009 and travelled to New Zealand themselves in 2011.
As one former Black Fern told me in my book, Scrum Queens – the story of women’s rugby:
“England kept New Zealand women’s rugby afloat in that era. We have a lot to thank the RFU for, when our own union refused to put their hands in their pocket, able to get away without too much backlash despite, or maybe even because of, our success.”
That lack of investment eventually caught up with the Black Ferns in 2014, when they were knocked out of the World Cup by Ireland, but lessons failed to be learned and New Zealand’s dire performances last year here in Europe suggested history was about to repeat itself.
The end of that tour resulted in a nasty public fallout, with leading player Te Kura Ngata-Aerengamate painting a picture of a corrosive environment where she experienced culturally insensitive comments, favouritism and ghosting.
The review which followed reached damning conclusions about New Zealand Rugby’s support for the women’s game and the team management around the Black Ferns.
Remarkably the union initially continued to stand by Glenn Moore – the coach at the centre of the accusations – and refused to say if they’d apologised to Ngata-Aerengamate.
“When we weigh up the feedback from the cultural environment review and the campaign review, we remain of the view that [Black Ferns coach Glenn Moore] is best placed to continue to lead the programme through until the Rugby World Cup,” said NZR chief executive Mark Robinson at the time, whose painful interview with Lisa Owen is worth a listen if you want to hear what squirming sounds like live on air.
This position of course couldn’t and didn’t hold and when Moore departed, a public apology followed as did emergency support into the team to try and turn things around in a matter of months before the World Cup.
Upheaval is often the catalyst for positive change, and it is unlikely New Zealand Rugby can now row back from the commitments and resources they have belatedly given their fine women’s team.
But the idea of Robinson and his team basking in the reflected glory of players who have for so long given so much with so little in return, is too galling to contemplate.
Comments on RugbyPass
Bold headline considering the Canes and Blues are 1 and 2 and the Brumbies were soundly beaten by the Chiefs and Blues. Biggest surprise is Rebels 4 Crusaders 12 - no one saw that coming. If Aus are improving that’s great 👍
1 Go to commentsAnna, You are right, we need to have patience whilst the others catch up to England and France. Also it is the PWR that has been the game changer for England. the RFU put money into that initially at the expense of the Red Roses. I was sceptical at first but it has paid off in spades.
1 Go to commentsI think Matt Proctor became a 1 test AB in the same fixture. Cameron is quality and has been great this season, can’t believe’s he only 27. Realistically how would he not be selected for ABs squad this year. Only Dmac is ahead of him as a specialist 10. With Jordan out, it will come down to where and when Beauden Barrett slots back in, and where they want to play Ruben Love. Cameron seems an absolute lock in for the wider squad though. Added benefit of TJ-Cameron-Jordie combination at 9, 10, 11 too.
1 Go to commentsFarcical, to what end would someone want to pay to keep this thing going.
1 Go to commentsHavili, our best 12 by a mile, will be in the squad, if he stays fit. JB is the most overrated AB in the last 50 years.
61 Go to commentsWe had during the week twilight footy, twilight cricket, tw golf plus there was the athletics club. Then the weekend was rugby 15s plus the net ball, really busy club scene back then but so much has changed and rugby has suffered. And it was all about changing lifestyles.
6 Go to commentsIn the 70s and 80s my club ran 5 Senior sides plus a Vets. Now it is 2 sides with an occasional 3rd team. Players have difficulty getting to training now, not sure why and the commitment is not there. It seems to me more a problem of people applying themselves and not expecting to turn up and play whenever they want to.
6 Go to commentsROG’s contract is until 2027. The conversation about a successor to Galthie after RWC 2027 may be starting now. We can infer that Galthie’s reign stops then. He is throwing the Irish Coaching Job angle in because he is Irish. The next Irish coach MUST be Leo Cullen. As well as being the best coach available, coaching the vast majority of Irish Internationals week in week out, he has shown incredible skill at recruiting the best coaching staff for the job in hand. That was a failing in France. Cullen is a shrewd guy and if there is a need for foreign coaches underneath him he won’t hesitate. Rightly so. Ireland does need to start to bring Irish coaches through. Not just at the professional level but we need to train coaches to man new pathways for developing kids from schools/clubs up through the divisions.
8 Go to commentsNo Islam says it must rule where it stands Thus it is to be deleted from this planet Earth
18 Go to commentsThis team probably does not beat the ABs sadly Not sure if BPA will be available given his signing for Force but has to enter consideration. Very strong possibility of getting schooled by the AB props. Advantage AB. Rodda/Skelton would be a tasty locking combination - would love to see how they get on. Advantage Wallabies. Backrow a risk of getting out hustled and outmuscled by ABs. Will be interesting to see if the Blues feast on the Reds this weekend the way they did the Brumbies we are in big trouble at the breakdown. Great energy, running and defence but goalkicking/general kicking/passing quality in the halves bothers me enormously. SA may have won the World Cup for a lot of the tournament without a recognised goalkicker but Pollard in the final made a difference IMO. Injuries and retirements leave AB stocks a bit lighter but still stronger. 12 and 13 ABs shade it (Barret > Paisami, Ione = Ikitau, arguably) Interesting clash of styles on the wings - Corey Toole running around Caleb Clark and Caleb running over the top of Toole. Reece vs Koro probably the reverse. Pretty even IMO. 15s Kelleway = Love See advantage to ABs man for man, but we are not obviously getting slaughtered anywhere which makes a nice change. Think talent wise we are pretty even and if our cohesion and teamwork is better than the ABs then its just about doable.
11 Go to commentsCompletely agree. More friday night games would be a hit. RFU to make sure every club has a floodlit pitch. Club opens again Saturday to welcome touch / tag. Minis and youths on Sunday
6 Go to comments1.97m and 105Kg? Proportionately, probably skinnier than me at 1.82 and 82kilos. He won’t survive against the big guys at that weight.
55 Go to commentsThe value he brought to the crusaders as an assistant was equal to what he got out of being there. He reflected not only on the team culture but also the credit he attributed to the rugby community. Such experience shouldn’t be overlooked.
8 Go to commentsGood luck Aussie
11 Go to commentssmith at 9 / mounga 10 / laumape 12 / fainganuku 14
61 Go to commentsBar the injuries, it’s pretty much their top team …
2 Go to commentsDon’t disagree with much of this but it appears you forgot Rodda and Beale, who started at the Force on the weekend.
11 Go to commentsExcept for the injured Zach Gallagher this would be Saders best forward pack for the season. Blackadder needs to stay at 7, for all of Christies tackling he is not dominant and offers very little else. McNicholfullback is maybe a good option, Fihaki not really upto it, there was a reason Burke played there last year. Maybe Havilli to 2nd five McLeod to wing. Need a strong winger on 1 side to compliment Reece
1 Go to commentsTo me TJ is clearly the best 9 in the competition right now but he's also a proven player off the bench, there's few playmaking players who can come off the bench as calm and settled as he is, Beauden can, TJ can and I doubt any of the scrumhalves in contention can, if they want to experiment with new 9s I want him on the bench ready to step in if they crumble under the pressure. The Boks put their best front row on the bench, I'd like to see us take a similar approach, the Hurricanes have been doing similar things with players like Kirifi.
61 Go to commentsROG has better chance to win a WC if he starts training and make himself eligible as a player. He won’t make the Ireland squad but I reckon he may get close with Namibia (needs to improve his Afrikaans) or Portugal. Both sides had 1000:1 odds to win the RWC in 2023 which is an improvement on ROG’s odds of winning a RWC as a coach. Unlike Top 14 teams, national teams can’t go shopping and buy the best players - you work with the available talent pool and turn them into world beaters.
8 Go to comments