Golden double drives Black Ferns legend
Fit-again New Zealand women’s rugby star sets her sights on a special double in 2021. Marc Hinton reports.
PORTIA Woodman has a golden double in her sights for next year and doesn’t mind admitting she has already visualised the unprecedented feat of Olympic sevens gold and Rugby World Cup glory less than two months apart.
The 29-year-old Black Ferns legend has confirmed for Sunday News that she is aiming to compete in both the postponed Olympic Games in Tokyo and then the historic women’s World Cup XVs tournament in New Zealand that follows soon after, in search of an unprecedented double that would well and truly leave the travails of the past couple of years in its dust.
‘‘You have to visualise it,’’ Woodman tells Sunday News at the World Cup draw in Auckland. ‘‘It’s not being cocky. It’s not being overly confident. You have to visualise. I visualise myself running around the sideline, so you have to visualise these things – but you’ve also got to work in all your support ... before you get to that point.
‘‘So, yes, it could be a golden year ... but you can’t get too far ahead of yourself.’’
The first step, though, is the commitment. And Woodman is all-in on playing in both the Olympic Games and the first XVs women’s World Cup on New Zealand soil as the Black Ferns aim for back-to-back global wins and a sixth crown overall in the ninth edition of the event.
There’s a bit of work to get through, and some buy-in needed from both national sevens coaches Allan Bunting and Cory Sweeney and XVs boss Glenn Moore, but you can take it as read that they will find away to have this explosive try-scoring machine and 2017 world player of the year featuring in both lineups.
The Olympics tournament – where Woodman and the Black Ferns will try to go one better than their silver medal from Rio – ends on July 31 and the XVs World Cup, in Auckland and Whangarei, kicks off on September 18. It’s tight, but eminently workable, says the former top netball player turned global rugby star.
‘‘Myself and a few of the other [sevens] girls really want to be there for the World Cup. It’s Olympics first and then we’ll see how we go,’’ says Woodman, who was a 2017 XVs World Cup winner and 2018 Commonwealth Games sevens gold medallist. ‘‘We’ve been doing it for awhile, going from XVs to sevens and sevens to XVs, andwe can manage it. There’s about 40 days between them, so that’s a few weeks for a rest and then back into it.
‘‘You will be fit and technically sound ... it’s that gameplan, strategy and understanding there’s less space and more people on the field and how do I get around it? But with the likes of Kelly Brazier and Kendra [Cocksedge] on the field, they run the game really well.’’
Woodman is some athlete. You don’t score 195 tries in 157 games on the world sevens circuit without having serious wheels. But she’s also coming off an Achilles rupture and hamstring tear that took her out of the game for nearly two years.
She returned this year via her first sport of netball – ‘‘to get my footwork and agility back’’ – and then into the Farah Palmer Cup, where she was a standout for Northland.
‘‘Now we’re three weeks into the sevens programme, and I’m feeling good. There are no niggles. The Achilles is good, the hammy is good.’’
Woodman called the FPC ‘‘a blessing’’ after the pandemic forced the sevens circuit into abeyance and created so much uncertainty in international sport.
‘‘Northland is home for me, and to give back to the girls, to Northland rugby, I felt we really put Northland on the map. By the end of that competition we were really hitting our straps.’’
As far as the sevens scene goes, and the doubt around what will be possible before Tokyo, Woodman reveals a special coping strategy. ‘‘Our vision is our team is awaka, and if we’re all working together, we’re going to head smoothly in the right direction. We’re going way back in our DNA, when Ma¯ori were travelling to different countries, they didn’t know where they were going. They were following the stars.
‘‘That’s how we see it at the moment. We’re paddling in the same direction, and when we get to our destination, whether it’s the Olympics, or Hong
Kong or Singapore, we’ll get there and we’ll be in good shape.’’
Woodman isn’t sure what the future holds beyond this year. She admits the women’s NRL is an enticing prospect, but so too is Japan, and awider world ‘‘with a lot of options for women athletes’’.
But right now, with the first World Cup on New Zealand soil a reality courtesy of Friday’s pool draw, she feels part of something pretty special.
‘‘I was at mum and dad’s with my leg up after just snapping my Achilles, and I cried when it was announced we were hosting the World
Cup. Now, a year out, sitting in this room, I was getting so nervous and excited watching the clips, and pools being drawn. I felt like I wanted to play right now.’’
It’s not being cocky. It’s not being overly confident. You have to visualise. I visualise myself running around the sideline ...’ PORTIA WOODMAN
I’ve just always loved cricket. It’s my happy place. As a kid, my mum, my sister and me, we’d always watch the cricket.’ SONIA GRAY
innings as a cricket presenter.
‘‘I won’t be in the commentary box, I’ll be down on the ground with the fans and [conducting] a few quick interviews with the players as they come off and getting the atmosphere,’’ she said. ‘‘But I must say I do get quite nervous [when I’m watching cricket] and if I’m at the ground I just go the ladies and have some depth breaths. But I’m not going to be able to do that in my job, I’m always going to have to be available, so that’s going to be interesting.’’ Although Gray has only ever played one competitive game of cricket in her life, scoring 64 not out for Parkway College, there is no denying her passion for the game.
The mother of twin daughters Thandie and Inez was a nationally recognised trackand-field athlete in her teens, but is a self-confessed cricket tragic from way back.
‘‘At the start of every season I’ll be like ‘cricket season is starting!’ and one of my
Former Shortland Street villain Sonia Gray admits to carrying some nerves into her first innings as a cricket presenter with Spark Sport.
daughters just rolls her eyes. It was hardwhen they were younger because I’d turn the cricket on and they’d just be screaming out for Dora the Explorer, so in those early days I didn’t get a lot of cricket in because I’d rather have them placid.’’
Gray’s earliest memory of watching cricket was the 1985 test series between the Black Caps and Australia, which New Zealand won on the back of a spectacular performance from Sir RichardHadlee.
‘‘I’ve just always loved cricket. It’s my happy place,’’ she said. ‘‘As a kid, my mum, my sister and me, we’d always watch the cricket. My earliest memory of a game is the ‘85 test series and winning that and Hadlee taking 9-52, and as a kid just going ‘wow, New Zealand has beaten Australia’.
‘‘There was an immense sense of pride and I think a lot of people felt like that about that series because it was a first for us and I guess the seed was
planted then, and I just loved the game— although I’ve never really played it which is unusual for people who really love it.
‘‘I did one innings in high school for Parkway College in Wainuiomata against Taita College and I got 64 not out, all scored in boundaries.
‘‘But [fielding] I thought this isn’t for me. The ball coming at me, I just ducked. I could handle it when I had a bat but a high ball? No. Hopeless.’’
Spark Sport’s first streamed match will be the Black Caps’ Twenty20 against West Indies at Eden Park this Friday.
Gray said she was already looking forward to picking the brains of the other members of the commentary team.
‘‘Just chatting to them and talking their ear off about cricket, they’ll probably get really sick of me asking lots of questions. I’ve got no great connection so I’m new in the house— but I’m hoping they’ll just welcome me in.’’