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Sophie de Goede retakes captaincy as Canada unveil squad for WXV
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Black Ferns forced to add Matatu prop to Pacific Four squad
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Black Ferns head coach Whitney Hansen has been dealt another injury blow in the Pacific Four series, being forced to draft in 28-year-old prop Marcelle Parkes into their travelling squad.
Parkes, Black Fern number 203, will join Hansen’s squad ahead of their important Pacific Four series matchup against Canada this weekend.
The seven-Test Black Fern will replace Awhina Tangen-Wainohu, who picked up an injury during last week’s build-up to the series opener against the USA in Sacramento.
“Prop Marcelle Parkes has joined the Black Ferns Pacific Four Series squad in Kansas City, Missouri as injury replacement for Awhina Tangen-Wainohu.”
Tangen-Wainohu’s injury was announced prior to their first game of the Hansen era against the USA, but the replacement was still unconfirmed.
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The original statement on April 12, stated that Tangen-Wainohu re-injured a previous neck injury during training ahead of the USA matchup.
“Black Ferns prop Awhina Tangen-Wainohu has been ruled out for the remainder of the Pacific Four Series following an aggravation of a previous neck injury sustained at Tuesday training.”
The Matatu prop will link up with the squad, having represented the Black Ferns on a number of occasions previously, while her relationship with Hansen at club level will help the transition into the squad.
Despite securing a comfortable bonus point victory in their first game of the 2026 international season, Hansen wasn’t fully satisfied with her side’s performance, discussing how you could see how excited they were.
“Yeah, we did it well in patches, and there were some places that we didn’t. But you can see it’s exciting when we when we do get up,” Hansen told media from California.
“I think we were really excited in the first half of what was coming, and you could see it there with those couple of errors and we’ve talked about it all week.
“Like this whole half the year around the fact that across this campaign, we may not be as clinical as what we’re going to need to be in the future because we’re coming off the back of no rugby and a training camp.
“So that’s always a tricky one to test as much as you can to try and train that. So we always had real confidence in how we wanted to play, and we knew it was coming in that first half.
“We just needed to be a little bit more deliberate, particularly at the breakdown, to allow us to do that and build pressure and build the phases and finish.”
