England react to dominating 'battle of the titans' to sweep WXV 1
England captain and newly crowned World Rugby Women’s Player of the Year Marlie Packer said she was “on cloud nine” after taking out both the award and the inaugural WXV 1 tournament.
“To be honest, at the end, I actually had some tears. I think, you know, not just the last four weeks, being here in New Zealand, we as a team have been really pushed.”
The 33-12 win over the Black Ferns at Go Media Mt Smart Stadium was a record loss for the world champions on home soil, with Packer’s England side enjoying a stunning opening quarter that saw them lead 19-0.
“It’s quite emotional but I’m just proud of all the girls in the way they performed tonight. They’ve backed up every game. This experience, you know, it’s not just the squad of 23. It’s a whole squad affair. And you know, the girls that didn’t play tonight prepared us for the performance tonight. So, I’ll take my hat off to them as well.”
England interim coach Louis Deacon echoed his skipper’s thoughts.
“You can’t just rely on one part of the game, set piece are one of our super strengths,” Deacon said.
“But like I said before the game, we’re going to need more than that today. The Black Ferns are an outstanding team. They really tested us and I think if you’re going to go toe to toe with them, you’ve got to have all parts of the game going. And that’s what the pleasing thing is. So yeah, like I said before, massively proud.”
Packer dismissed speculation that the win was fuelled by a desire to make up for last year’s Rugby World Cup final loss to New Zealand.
“I think this week it’s been really different,” she said.
“We actually haven’t focused on that at all. Like we talk about the goal we set 11 weeks ago when you start pre-season and you know, the essences kept on coming back to us like you’re feeling like it’s because of this and our target is to be putting in our best performance come this week.”
Black Ferns co-captain Kennedy Simon said it was difficult to stop a Red Roses side in that sort of mood, no matter how good the preparation was.
“They’re methodical, you know,” Simon said.
“A well-oiled engine. We did preview that they were going to carry around the edge like that, and it was just about winning those moments. That’s how they got the first try and then the next one that followed. So I can see it was going to take a little learnings from this. You know, that’s just history. And like I said, they’re a great side.”
Black Ferns Director of Rugby Allan Bunting said his side “didn’t really get their game going.”
“Towards the end of the first half, we didn’t bring them around a bit. And the way we started the second half and if we might have scored one more try, that might have been a bit different. We were let down a bit with discipline and a bit of handling.”
England centre Helena Rowland echoed her coaches assessment of where the Red Roses are at.
“Obviously a big result for us. We felt we’ve been building since had two games, we’ve got a lot of new stuff that’s been brought in and I think you can see today it really starting to come together and yeah, culminated in that result for us.”
Try scorer Sarah Bern said playing the Black Ferns is “always amazing”.
“It’s always going to be a challenge, is always going to be that Battle of the Titans. And you just got to keep going. You got to keep pushing on. It was amazing to play them tonight and it was brilliant just to get the win.”
Comments on RugbyPass
My heart is with Quins, but the head is convinced Toulouse have too much. Ntamack is back, his timing and wisdom has been missed.
1 Go to commentsWow, what a starting line up for the Sharks) Tasty up front,kremer vs Tshituka or venter …fiery ,,Lavannini ,,will he knobble etzebeth? Biggest game for belleau?
1 Go to commentsIt was rubbish to watch, Blues weren’t even present. Did what they had to do, nothing more. Should be better next week against canes.
1 Go to commentsI’ve just noticed that this match has an all-French refereeing team. Surely a game like this ought to have a neutral ref? Although looking at the BBC preview of the Saints game, Raynal is also down as reffing that - so there may be some confusion about who is reffing what.
1 Go to commentsIf Havili can play anywhere in the back line, why not first 5. #10.
11 Go to commentsThe dressing room had already left for their summer break before they ran out in Dublin that year, and that’s on the coach. Franco Smith has undoubtedly made progress, particularly their maul, developing squad players and increasing squad depth. And against a very tight budget too. That said they were too lightweight last year and got found out against both Toulon and Munster in consecutive games. Better this season so far but they’ve developed something of a slow start habit occasionally, most notably losing at home to Northampton who played them at their own game. Play offs will ultimately show whether there has been tangible progress on last year, or not…!
2 Go to commentsAustralian Rugby has been a disaster, by not incorporating learning from previous successful campaigns. QLD Reds 2011 - Waratahs 2014. Players, coaches and administrators appoint there representatives for scheduled meetings, organisation’s agreement’s assessments and correspondence. This why a unified Rugby Union under one entity works. Every Rugby nation has taken that path. Was most difficult in the Northern hemisphere with over 100 years of club rugby before the game become professional. Took a lot of humility for those unions to eventually work together.
7 Go to commentsThough Wilson’s sacking was pretty brutal, it wasn’t just down to that Leinster game; Glasgow had a lot of 2nd half collapses that season, in the URC and Europe, and only just scraped into the playoffs. Franco Smith has definitely been an improvement, some players are delivering far more than they did under Wilson.
2 Go to commentsjesus - that front 5!
1 Go to commentsShould be an absolute cracker of a game! Will be great to see DuPont & Ntamack in tandem once again🔥
1 Go to commentsBest team ever…. To have played? These guys are still pressure chokers. Came nowhere when it counted. What a joke
69 Go to commentsMusk defends anonymous terrorism, fascism, threats against individuals and children etc etc But a Rugby club account….lock ‘em up!!!
1 Go to commentsActually the era defining moment came a few years earlier. February 2002 to be precise, when Michael D Higgins as finance minister at the time introduced his sports persons tax relief bill to the dial. As the politicians of the day stated “It seems to be another daft K Club frolic born in Kildare amongst the well-paid professional jockeys with whom the Minister plays golf” and that the scheme represented “a savage uncaring vision of Ireland and one that should be condemned”. The irfu and Leinster would be nowhere near the position they are in today without this key component of the finances.
5 Go to commentsIt is crystal clear that people who make such threats on line should be tried and imprisoned. Those with responsibility in social media companies who don’t facilitate this should be convicted. In real life, I have free speech to approach someone like Reinach and verbally threaten him. I am risking a conviction or a slap but I could do it. In the old days, If someone anonymously threatened someone by letter the police would ask and use evidence from the postal system. Unlike the Post, social media companies have complete instant and legal access to the content in social media. They make money from the data, billions. Yet, they turn a blind eye to terrorism, Nazi-ism and industrial levels of threats against individuals including their address and childrens schools being published online all from ananoymous accounts not real people. They claim free speech. Free speech for anonymous trolls/voilent thugs threatening people under false names? The fault is with the perps but also social media companies who think anonymous personas posting death threats constitutes free speech.
2 Go to commentsSo if this ain’t the best Irish team ever then who exactly is? I don’t remember any other Irish team being this good & winning a series in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Yes I may rip them often for 8 X QF RWC exits & twice not even making it to the QF, but they’re a damn good team who many think can only improve, including me!
69 Go to commentsNot a squeek out of Leinster for weeks about this match. So quiet. The first team have been quitely building for this encounter under Nienaber’s direction. All fresh, all highly motivated. They are expecting a season’s best performance from Northhampton. They will match that. They will be fresher and apparently they will have 80,000 out of the 83,000 shouting for them. I do expect Northhampton to turn up big time. Not to be missed. On a tangent it is evident how the loss of a few Premiership teams has in some respect helped other Premiership teams and England. More quality over less teams makes the teams better, which has a knock on effect on England. Not the only factor contributing to England’s rise but one of them.
5 Go to commentsOur very own monster teddy bear Ox😍💪
17 Go to commentsThis is might be the most generalised, entitled, patronising, out-of-pocket cultural indictment on a group of people you’ll ever see on what is supposedly a sports publication. I can only assume the author is weak like a woman or homosexual. I’m feeling an incredible range of emotions but I am not quite sure how to express them. I might go beat up a hockey player - assuming that’s okay with Duane and the boys? 🙂
9 Go to commentsBest thing the Welsh clubs could do is apply to join Gallagher prem surely be more exciting matches for there support than they have now.
2 Go to commentsRugbyPass writers are useless! you guys should get a real job because you all suck at writing about rugby!!!
9 Go to comments