Farah Palmer: RWC watershedmoment
Blacks Ferns great tells Marc Hinton she’s ‘buoyed’ by the state of women’s rugby in NZ.
AS Black Ferns great and boardroom trailblazer Farah Palmer surveys the New Zealand women’s rugby scene that bears her name so prominently, she does so with hope in her heart and just a little pride over the part she’s played in it.
And why wouldn’t this Kiwi icon of women’s rugby be excited? New Zealand will next year host the first World Cup to be staged outside of the northern hemisphere, and the sport is starting to makemajor inroads among females of all ages in this country. It shapes as awatershed moment on all sorts of levels.
Palmer, a senior lecturer in Massey University’s School of Management and director of their Ma¯ori Business & Leadership Centre, as well as an integral member of the board of NZ Rugby, was part of that successful bid for theWorld Cup. She is also on the tournament’s organising committee.
When she attended the draw ceremony for next year’s tournament, which will take place in Auckland and Whangarei between September 18 and October 16, she felt it was every bit as important as the three successive cups she lifted as captain of the Black Ferns (1998-2006).
‘‘On my Facebook updates it said two years ago you were over in Ireland trying to win this opportunity. When I saw the pictures from that time I really remembered those emotions. I’ve only ever felt those when I won the World Cup as a captain.
‘‘It was such a big moment and [the draw ceremony] has reminded me of that, and to really keep that moment going and put on a great tournament and demonstrate the best of rugby players. It’s really exciting. I’ve always wanted the World Cup to be here in Aotearoa, New Zealand, so we can share with the world how rugby is just a part of our culture, for men and for women.’’
Palmer is well used to breaking through barriers. The former Black Fern (35 tests, 1996-2006) was inducted into World Rugby’s Hall of Fame in 2014 and has served on the NZ Ma¯ori Rugby board, which she chairs, since 2007. She becameNZR’s first female board member when she won a rightful spot at the table in
2016, and is an
Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit. She also joined the Sport New Zealand board in 2018.
The truth of it is she was such an important figure for women’s rugby in New Zealand, they named the premier domestic competition after her. Not even men’s luminaries Colin Meads and BJ Lochore received that lofty honour.
As for the state of the New Zealand women’s game she helped launch into mainstream consciousness, she says: ‘‘I’m buoyed by it. Our greatest growth areas are for females, and that’s ripper rugby all the way through. We’ve got a provincial competition, which I call the FPC, that is doing really well — even though Covid has hit, we’ve still got a lot of enthusiasm for the women’s game.’’
Now the opportunity looms next year to take a grip on a generation of young New Zealanders,
‘‘I think the younger generation just think this is normal that men and women can have a go at rugby and awhole lot of different things,’’ she reflects. ‘‘We’ve got a female prime minister, we’ve got all these world sporting events coming to our doorstep putting women in the spotlight.
‘‘I think theywill have a completely different mindset when it comes to what they can do.’’
There are always ways to do things even better and women’s rugby is no exception.
‘‘We can do better to support our clubs in terms of how they can make their environments more inclusive for women,’’ says Palmer. ‘‘And we do tend to see most of our growth in the younger ages, so we need to figure out what are the pathways for all this enthusiasm we’re creating at that young age.’’
Women’s rugby is also getting its fair share of the better athletes around, reckons Palmer, though, again, it can always do better.
‘‘We can still wrap some support around them at the provincial level, which we’re trying to figure out. We’re tweaking aswe go. We’ve got exvolleyball players, netballers, still thinking, ‘I should have a go at this’. We want people who are athletic and skilful, and then we can workwith that.’’
And the boardroom mover and shaker is hopeful that the belt-tightening that’s sure to play out for New Zealand Rugby on the back of a massive financial hit from the pandemic in 2020 will not impact too heavily on the female side of the game.
‘‘It hasn’t to date,’’ she shrugs. ‘‘The government is really behind women’s sport, so that’s helped buffer things and we’ve got sponsors who can see it’s a good investment and they want to be associated with it. I think we’re OK for now.’’