'Words that carry weight, carry mana': Demant talks World Cup disappointment and Bears

There are few players as thoughtful as Ruahei Demant. Her words carry weight and mana – a Maori word often used to describe a leader, but one which has no literal or direct English translation. It speaks to a person’s influence, authority and prestige, someone who’s words and actions earn them respect. Someone like the Black Ferns co-captain.

When she speaks, people listen, or at least they should, because as a long year of rugby wraps up in one sense and a new challenge begins, Demant has plenty to say. She’s typically honest about where the Black Ferns’ Women’s Rugby World Cup campaign fell down, and forthright on what she believes the team and women’s rugby in New Zealand needs if they’re to regain their place at the top of world.

While she doesn’t waste nor mince her words and never gives rash answers to questions on those weighty matters, equally, you can hear the excitement and enthusiasm in her voice about her impending move to Bristol Bears and Premiership Women’s Rugby.

Demant arrived in the UK last weekend on a four-month injury replacement contract, but reveals conversations with Bristol had actually taken place well before the Women’s Rugby World Cup. At that stage however, she felt she had too much on her plate to really give it proper consideration despite being enthusiastic about the idea.

“After the World Cup and once we knew the change to our calendar would mean a big gap between the end of tournament and PAC4 (Pacific Four Series) next year, I said to my manager ‘I need to grow as a player, I need to do something different and could you look for opportunities for me to just play anywhere’,” Demant told RugbyPass.

“At that time, unfortunately, Bristol got an injury to on one of their inside backs so it came about really quickly. I think it’s funny that I’m going to Bristol given they were the first club, the only club actually, to reach out to me. I like to think that I’m a woman of my word and I really did want to go there so I’m glad things worked out the way they have.”

Some of her greatest international rivals will now become team-mates. Red Roses prop Sarah Bern one of the first to send Demant a message welcoming her to the club. She says knowing others are excited to have her join the ranks makes it easier to prepare herself for what will eventually be back-to-back-to back winters and having to leave behind her beloved Jack Russell terrier, Bullet – even though he’s currently working on his behaviour after recently absconding from doggie day care.

Making new friends and simply playing with mates is one of Demant’s favourite parts of the game, but she says this move will be beneficial in a multitude of ways.

“I’ve been going to Eden Park and the training base at Alexandra Park day in day out for four years, with mostly the same group of girls, the same gym, the same field and doing the same thing, so I see this opportunity to go over to Bristol and return back refreshed,” Demant said. “I really want to grow as a player and I know that I’m going to get that because I’m playing in a world class competition, surrounded by some of the best players in the world.”

She turned down the initial approach from Bears in part because she didn’t want to sacrifice the Blues and Super Rugby. While it had long been rumoured that the Aupiki competition would move to later in the year to accommodate the new global international calendar, Demant concedes it was frustrating waiting for that confirmation.

The change to the calendar now means the bulk of New Zealand’s leading players will have no rugby until April and their first matches back will be the Pacific Four Series against Canada, USA and Australia. A handful have now taken up PWR contracts in England, while Braxton Sorensen-McGee and Katelyn Vahaakolo have switched to sevens. The vast majority are going to have to slog it out in a very long pre-season over the New Zealand summer.

Demant says it leaves a big question: “If you don’t play footy from October to April, how are we going to prepare our team for international test level rugby?”

You can sense a level of frustration at the immediate impact of the changes while also trying to see the broader, long-term picture. Demant, who has shared the captaincy of New Zealand with Kennedy Tukuafu since 2022, hopes the move that she and others are making to the PWR will give teammates the confidence to seek out the same chances. However, she feels like this is yet another reset period for the Black Ferns.

“I think about the momentum that was created off the back of the 2022 World Cup and the opportunity that was missed there, and it feels like things haven’t really progressed probably as quickly as what I would’ve hoped for, and I think a lot of the girls would’ve hoped for as well,” she continued. “That’s not to say that there hasn’t been progress because there has, but I mean the only progress that counts as results, right?”

Which leads us back to Bristol. It is the city of New Zealand’s World Cup demise and Ashton Gate the site of Canada’s semi-final demolition job. Demant is looking forward to actually getting to see some of the city and creating happier memories at that stadium, and down the road at Shaftesbury Park, but the move has also meant it is time to reflect more fully on the Women’s Rugby World Cup exit.

 

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“It’s still hard to put the disappointment into words but the more I sit in it and the more that I reflect on why I feel so disappointed, it’s because we never played our best 80,” she shared. “The opposition, the fans, our supporters never got to see the best of us and we didn’t get to see the best of us. We never got into that flow state,” she said.

Asked to pinpoint why the Black Ferns never hit their stride, Demant had a few thoughts.

“There’s definitely multiple factors, but I can’t even remember if throughout the World Cup we had the same 15 from one game to the next and that’s always hard when you don’t have the consistency,” she said. “You, would think that as the tournament gets on, it’s just going to be the same 15 named all the time but that never happened and I think if we had more time together it would’ve been a lot easier to gel.”

The question consistently asked by pundits, the press and the public in the lead up to the tournament was whether four Tests and a trial game was enough preparation. Said with the perfect vision of hindsight, Demant doesn’t think they played enough games.

“Nowhere near enough,” she conceded. “We went into a two week camp where we played boys teams, but they weren’t real games. While there were some benefits for sure, I wonder now if that was what the team needed at that point in our campaign of if what we needed was games? You can’t replace game time. You can’t do it. Game time is king.”

Although that sounds critical of outgoing director of rugby Allan Bunting and his team, Demant is fulsome in her tribute of the man known as ‘Bunts’, as he steps down from his role.

“Our big thing this year was ‘serving the Fern’ and when I think of someone who’s given so much for over a decade, you know, Bunts has been at the forefront of the professionalism of women’s rugby 7s and 15s,” Demant said. “I don’t even know if there’s another coach out there that has been able to do what he’s done and for such a long time.

“His real strength is bringing people together and the decision that he’s made to not reapply for this role is probably one that he knows that he has nothing more to give to enhance the jersey.”

As you’d expect, Demant has given thought too and has a very firm view on the type of coach she believes should take over the role.

“Someone who is experienced at international level,” she said. “Ideally we need a coach who’s already at the forefront, not someone who is still trying to find their feet in terms of the international test footy landscape. Someone who knows what’s required to succeed, who knows this is our DNA of New Zealanders, as New Zealand rugby, someone who is innovative, world-leading, who’s brave and not afraid to do something different.

“Because that’s what we do best and I don’t think we’ve been world-leading or innovative in the last couple years in both men’s and women’s rugby. There’s some pretty good Kiwi coaches overseas so it’s someone’s job to ask, right? You know find someone who wants serve their country, and be part of an adventure that they’ve probably never experienced before with people that they would’ve never coached before.”

Demant believes a lot can be learned from the success of the Women’s Rugby World Cup in England, a topic she spoke eloquently about after the bronze medal match in London. She concedes New Zealand has fallen well behind in its support for and promotion of the women’s game and points to things like stadium selection and ticket pricing as areas where World Cup organisers got their decision-making spot on. With an historic first ever women’s British & Irish Lions Tour slated for New Zealand in 2027, she is hopeful that lessons will be learned.

 

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For someone who gives so much thought to so many areas of the game, and has done so for a long period of time, it would be easy for Demant to feel jaded or to simply take a step back, go off, try something new and let someone else put their head above the parapet for a while. But that’s not her style.

Because, if anything, the last six months and defeat in the Women’s Rugby World Cup semi-final has renewed her drive to go again. The stint with Bristol is the adventure she craves, but her commitment to Aotearoa and the Black Ferns is unwavering.

“Standing on that field at Ashton Gate after the semi-final and losing and not even getting a crack at the gold,  it was in that exact moment that I was just like, ‘I’m not satisfied and I’m not ready to finish, I don’t want to finish like this’,” Demant said. “So that moment, that feeling, that’s what will drive me.”

At a time when New Zealand Rugby across the board feels in a state of flux both on and off the field, perhaps those head office would do well to heed the some of the words of one of their national captains. Words that carry weight, carry mana.