Black Ferns play the final – and then go back to work
Amateur ethos still very much at core of our women’s rugby, reports Olivia Caldwell.
IT’S the morning after the Women’s Rugby World Cup final in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Regardless of the result the Black Ferns women were likely to have had a late night, but the drinks won’t continue for months on end for these girls – they’ve got work on Monday.
Perhaps not quite Monday, but for locks Eloise Blackwell and Rebecca Wood, they have 10 days to be back in New Zealand and at school and the fire station respectively.
Blackwell is a health and physical education teacher at Epsom Girls’ Grammar in Auckland, while Wood is a firefighter at the Silverdale Fire service.
From Monday to Friday ‘‘Miss Blackwell’’ arrives at the classroom, inspires her students and loves every minute of being a secondary school teacher.
Her alter ego, Blackwell, well she is a little bit different.
Blackwell is a star lock for the Black Ferns and has been in the side since 2011. She has been a vital part of the team’s lineout since she was 18. Blackwell trains hard, tackles harder and is nothing like the Miss Blackwell her students see at Epsom Girls’ Grammar – and she likes it that way.
‘‘You kind of lead two lives, you are at work because you need to support yourself and what not. But then with the Black Ferns you play sport, have fun and travel the world.’’
Seven days from now Blackwell will get to travel Europe for the first time.
She will stop over in Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich and Rome, but the fun will all quickly end and reality will hit when she arrives back to school to be there for her students’ mock exams which start early next week.
‘‘I’ve been over here a long time and I do miss home. The children are like ‘Miss you are like a relief teacher, we never see you’. So I feel bad about that.
‘‘Last weekend I got sent a video of the entire junior assembly, which is about 1000 girls saying good luck, that really picked us up.
‘‘It is a huge honour to represent your country and the one common thing between all us girls is that our families are the driving force behind it all.’’
While she loves her career as a teacher, Blackwell admits it would be nice to be paid as a fulltime rugby professional like her All Blacks counterparts.
‘‘I guess it would be pretty cool to be paid to play the sport you love, but the balance is good too. It would be cool, but I enjoy having both worlds.’’
Blackwell co-coaches the 10-a-side Epsom Girls’ rugby team and wants to inspire young girls to become Black Ferns also. As she says, it has given her an opportunity she would never have realised without rugby.
The 26-year-old is originally from Great Barrier Island, which has a population of about 800. Her entire family still live there and she is grateful to be able to return every time she comes home from a trip abroad with the Black Ferns.
Fellow lock and firefighter Wood also knows what it’s like to get up early, work a full day, then train and do it all again the next day.
‘‘It’s hard because I start work at 7am and go through to 5.30pm, then into training.’’
Wood’s roster is different to many of her fellow firefighters, as leading in to the World Cup she was taken off the night shifts in order to help her have regularity with her training.
‘‘It is different, you don’t get a lot of down time, you work and you train.’’
Wood studied to be a paramedic at university, but had always wanted to be a firefighter so went through the long process to become one. She started playing rugby three years ago, the same time she began with the Silverdale Fire Service.
The 30-year-old says she had to pinch herself competing at a RWC final, something young Kiwi girls have been dreaming about this GETTY IMAGES
‘ You kind of lead two lives ...’ ELOISE BLACKWELL
week as the Black steamrolled through opponents.
‘‘Absolutely it’s weird because it hasn’t been a long-term dream, but now that I’m here it’s awesome. I wish I played at school because now at 30 I feel like I’m at the end of my career. This was my last opportunity to get here.’’
She started playing in Auckland in 2014 before heading across the bridge to play for East Coast Bays and North Harbour Hibiscus, for whom she played every game during the 2016 Farah Palmer Cup, catching the eye of the Black Ferns selectors.
Wood was introduced to rugby first through rugby sevens and loved it so much she took up the 15s game. While she has her dream job outside of rugby, she has realised a dream she never even knew she wanted.
‘‘I fell in love with this team. I went along to one of the trainings last year because they were short on numbers so I jumped at that opportunity. They invited me back as they must have liked what they saw and now I’m here.’’
Wood very nearly gave up on rugby, but decided she would give the Black Ferns a crack before hanging up her boots.
‘‘I decided to give it my everything and if it didn’t pay off I was going to give it up. It was now or never.’’ Ferns their