Black Ferns need to be ‘fully professional’
Women’s rugby needs to go to a new level, says Black Ferns coach Glenn Moore who fully backs a mooted professional competition in New Zealand.
Moore’s involvement with the Ferns remains uncertain in 2018 after he was named coach of the year at the New Zealand Rugby awards last week.
While the 58-year-old old former Highlanders coach and Blues Super Rugby assistant is interested in continuing his work with the side, he said there were still details to be decided around the Black Ferns schedule and also professionalism in the wake of their world cup win.
New Zealand Rugby is yet to confirm reports it is looking to take the women’s game into a fully professional environment and launch a new competition for the 15s game.
Moore said he was none the wiser on the proposed competition, but was adamant there needed to be some momentum carried over form the world cup win. The Black Ferns wouldn’t continue as the best in the world if they weren’t at least shifted into the semi-professional era.
‘‘I haven’t been included in any of the detail of that, but I have been promoting my thoughts around that and we do need to take it to a new level,’’ he said.
NZME reported NZR planned to introduce an eight-week competition played over the summer months, including paying the women’s players. It would begin in 2019.
However NZR remained in talks with the Rugby Players Association negotiating a new memorandum of understanding for the 15s women’s game and until this was decided there would be no further comment.
Moore said he would like to see a shift in the 15s game, similar to that of how the sevens women operate: a professional environment in camp to train and to be coached continuously.
‘‘We need to keep the brand going and allowing the programme to grow the game because clearly there has been a lot of momentum after the world cup and we need that to keep going.’’
While Moore was interested in continuing with the side, he admitted it would need to be under the right conditions. The Black Ferns programme for 2018 has not been released, but Moore said it would need to be more than just a ‘‘holding pattern’’ until the next world cup.
Moore was officially off contract at the end of October.
‘‘If it turns out not to be me that’s involved then I would make sure there is a good handover. I would definitely like to be [involved] but it comes down to whether we can continue to try grow the game, We don’t want to be in a situation where qe are just in a holding pattern.’’
Moore said other nations were thinking along the same lines and countries like England and France would become a threat if NZR didn’t act quickly. He was also concerned that current and up and coming players would turn to new codes if they didn’t have a professional side to aspire to.
‘‘It’s clear to me a number of other countries have progressed a lot. The gap has closed.’’