Back 
1
Black Ferns legend Kendra Cocksedge announces retirement plans
By AAP
New Zealand rugby legend Kendra Cocksedge has announced her retirement after this year’s World Cup.
ADVERTISEMENT
Cocksedge, 34, will leave the game with a string of records, saving the game’s greatest stage for her final act.
“Nothing goes past winning a World Cup,” she said on Friday.
Cocksedge would know, playing in three World Cups, winning two, including a match-turning effort in the 2017 final with 11 second-half points to win the trophy back off England.
The Taranaki-raised halfback said she considered retirement after that win.
“I thought about it in 2017 and then people were saying how crazy I was. So I continued to play and I’ve probably played my best footy in the last four years,” she said.
Australia knows her destructive capacity well.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Wallaroos were left reeling from her best afield showing in last month’s 52-5 loss in Christchurch as New Zealand retained the O’Reilly Cup.
Cocksedge, named 2015 World Rugby player of the year and in the World Rugby team of the 2010s, is both the highest points scorer and most capped Black Fern of all time.
In 2018, she shocked the rugby establishment by becoming the first female to win the Kelvin R Tremain Memorial trophy for best Kiwi player that year.
New Zealand Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson said Cocksedge was a legend with “success without peer”.
ADVERTISEMENT
All going to plan, Cocksedge’s final game will be the World Cup final on November 12 at Auckland’s Eden Park.
– Ben McKay
Comments
Join free and tell us what you really think!
Join Free
Latest Comments
Agreed if anyone is a 'finisher' at international level it's Smith. That fancy goose step, and hitch kick will only work once or twice per game at this level (and I suspect will end up with him getting a nasty Cruciate injury, SH flankers will line up to smash him low, but that's for another day...), and his pace and point of difference with Farrell would make a decent option off the bench. But can England afford a specialist ten on the bench, who doesn't seem able to play anywhere else?
Go to commentsDoes anyone know if Fozzie actually wants to coach the ABs past the World Cup? Feels like an important detail amidst all this speculation about how he might or might not be taking things.
Go to comments