State of Play: Women’s Rugby in New Zealand in 2024

It didn’t take long for a big announcement to come in the world of women’s rugby this year. A British & Irish Lions (Lionesses?) women’s side will tour New Zealand in 2027, although the reaction to the news down in these parts has been somewhat mixed.

Which feels in line with the general reaction overall, given that it’s hard to see a Lions side being anything other than England playing in a different uniform right now. But while that’s a challenge for Scotland, Wales and Ireland to face, there’s also the ones in the upcoming host country that need to be addressed too.

The Black Ferns, Super Rugby Aupiki and women’s rugby in general in New Zealand is in a unique space right now. A lot of the future is looking very bright, however there are going to be some serious obstacles to overcome in the next few years as well.

Someone who knows that acutely is NZ Rugby’s head of women’s rugby, Claire Beard.

“We do need a better feeder system,” Beard admits, bringing up the most obvious issue hindering development at a high-performance level. Currently there are 3,800 registered senior women’s players, a figure that can only sustain four Aupiki sides.

“We need more senior women’s rugby players, we need more female coaches and referees, we need more female volunteers, we need more diversity on our boards.”

The real clash of ideologies with a Lions tour is that is, fundamentally, at odds with the direction NZR is taking. Last year saw the release of their ground-breaking women and girls strategy, the main focus of which is to increase the amount of female players to 50,000 over the next decade.

“We are very confident of that target,” says Beard.

“We’ve already seen registrations double what they were four years ago, so that momentum that we generated from the World Cup…we have an opportunity to think differently about the women’s game.

“We can’t offer rugby the same way it’s offered to boys, so it’s made us think about the constraints and environments we’re delivering it in – because women are different. That could open up a conversation about where we take the game as a whole in the future.”

While a Lions tour certainly wouldn’t hurt promoting the women’s game here, the more pressing concern is getting people interested in the third season of Aupiki. Professionalism is ever so slightly shifting women’s rugby into being its own unique entity, drawing a new generation of fans. That’s something Beard wants to maintain.

“I think that you still have to be incredibly intentional about change,” says Beard.

“People have choices around the consumption of anything, any leisure activity and any content activity is a choice. So, the opportunity to ensure that what we’re doing and how we’re doing it, we can’t just make it available and install it and think, yeah, the job’s done.”

It’s not going to be easy. The irony is that the same engagement challenges that face women’s rugby in its new era have been eating away at the interest in the men’s game for quite a while now – so it’s not as straightforward as simply repackaging rugby with eye-catching scrunchies and Ruby Tui.

New Zealand is a shifting society, with the full integration of women into one of the longest-standing bastions of heteronormative patriarchy sometimes feeling like an inevitable assimilation rather than bold new creation.

“I think the big thing is making sure we are learning,” Beard said.

“When stuff isn’t working, we stop it. And when we try things, we’re really intentional about trying things. We’ve been to a lot of venues over the last two years. We’ve introduced fans a lot of new formats and a lot of new brands…so I think simplifying the product offering for the fan is definitely a big learning.”

One obvious example of how men’s and women’s rugby is still very much tied at the hip in New Zealand was the recent WXV 1 series, played over three weeks in October/November 2023. It was at the same time the men’s Rugby World Cup, meaning that already stretched sports media resource to get the tournament’s very existence in front of fans wasn’t even in the country at the time.

Not that the situation was anyone’s fault, more an unfortunate reality of timings. There was no other time to hold WXV 1 to fit in with the way that the northern and southern hemisphere seasons work – meaning it was at a time in New Zealand when the posts have been well and truly packed up for the season, with rugby consumption a purely televised event because that’s when the All Blacks are usually touring Europe.

“We felt we had no option other than to get it off the ground as fast as we could, using the momentum of the World Cup last year,” World Rugby director of women’s rugby Sally Horrox said in November.

“We were always aware of the fact that there would be a clash, which is not ideal. In an ideal world, you would have some clear water between the two.”

It was, unfortunately, in stark contrast to the women’s World Cup held a year beforehand. The final at a sold-out Eden Park will go down as one of the greatest games ever played in New Zealand, men’s or women’s, and seemed to signify a change in the air. The Black Ferns still were able to draw an impressive 11,000 to a test against Australia in Hamilton in September, but only a month later the WXV 1 crowds were down on what was expected.

It also didn’t help that the Black Ferns just weren’t very good last season. It was the first time they’d ever lost to France at home, and the first time they’d dropped two tests on NZ soil in a season as well.

Kiwis are unsurprisingly extremely perceptive with the inner workings and undoings of their rugby teams: while the Black Ferns won the World Cup not many in New Zealand fooled themselves into thinking that it wasn’t a massively fortuitous upset of the dominant English, by the time WXV 1 rolled around it was obvious that the side was in a serious rebuild phase.

That same public attitude is one that Aupiki needs to overcome too, although the signs by the end of the 2023 season were that it was a seriously viable product. Again, the biggest stage provided the best rugby when Matatu beat Chiefs Manawa 33-31 in a thrilling final.

“I think that the women’s rugby opportunities that we’re offering are good for those solid fans. I mean, I don’t know how many conversations I’ve had with those kind of avid male fans that are like, ‘I’m loving watching women’s rugby. It’s back to the good old classic rugby’” says Beard.

“They (traditional rugby fans) are an incredibly valuable asset to our rugby family because they’re such massive advocates. Feeling better about being an advocate, a salesperson, a promoter of women’s rugby is absolutely integral to us and the game and listening to them is really important.”

Which is why NZR’s plans are more about the ground up, because the goals of the women and girls strategy is to make sure there is a sustainable playing base in 10 years’ time. Most of the players who will pull on Black Ferns jerseys by that time may not have even picked a ball up yet.

Some of the fledgling players may well find themselves lining up against the Lions in 2027. There’s a lot of water to go under the bridge between now and then, including the rumoured 2025 arrival of a Warriors women’s side in the rapidly expanding NRLW competition, which will test the already shallow women’s talent pool that union and league very much share in New Zealand.

Bring on 2027! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇮🇪🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Who would you like to see in a @lionsofficial shirt? 🦁@RoyalLondon#Lions2027 #Rugby #WomensRugby pic.twitter.com/hdEbiORnjZ

— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) January 16, 2024

“We have nothing to be fear,” Beard said. “We’re so proud that they are getting a Warriors women’s team underway, there is no competition if everyone’s successful.”

That’s fair, especially since it would be tricky to reverse the ‘live and let live’ policy towards code swapping players so far. Just having young girls with a ball in their hands helps the ultimate goal of upping the participation rate, which is ultimately much more important than a Lions tour that will, admittedly, be an experiment.

Then again, given the success of women’s Rugby World Cup and the FIFA Women’s World Cup in the country last year, the blueprint is there to make it work. So as long as things are done currently, every goal can be achieved by the time the tour happens.