Kiwi Ferns lose after poor start comes back to haunt them
The Kiwi Ferns came close to pulling off a great win over the Jillaroos in a thrilling encounter at Mt Smart Stadium yesterday.
New Zealand went down 26-24 to the world champions, but it was a display that showed plenty of determination and passion as they fought their way back from being 12-0 down early in the game.
During the first quarter the Kiwi Ferns were outclassed and looked to be heading towards a big defeat.
But it turned out to be a nailbiting match and while the Kiwi Ferns’ defence was still prone to lapses, on attack they continually opened up Australia.
With five tries scored by each side, it came down to the better goal kicking from Australia’s Chelsea Baker.
‘‘It was a tough game and we can say it was one that got away, but there were moments in the game that got away from us a bit,’’ Kiwi Ferns coach Kelvin Wright said.
‘‘The start, the first 10-15 minutes, maybe that came back to haunt us at the end of the game.
‘‘You can’t take anything away from my girls’ efforts, they left everything out there.’’
Kiwi Ferns captain Honey Hireme said while they had the backs to the wall for half of the first period, she was confident that they could get back into the contest.
‘‘We just needed to get our hands on the ball and weather that storm a bit,’’ she said.
‘‘We defended for a big chunk of that first half, but once we started to play some footy and look after the ball on attack, we started to open them up.’’
In the fifth minute the Jillaroos were already on the board as fiveeighth Ali Brigginshaw got through some poor defending on the left edge and winger Julia Robinson scored an easy try in the corner.
Baker struck a superb conversion from out wide to give Australia a 6-0 lead.
Five minutes later the Australians were in again as once more Brigginshaw saw the Kiwi Ferns’ defence open up in front of her and scored under the crossbar.
With 11 minutes to go in the half the Kiwi Ferns hit back with a try when five-eighth Raecene McGregor threw a great pass outside to Langi Veainu, who dived in by the corner flag. Four minutes into the second half the Kiwi Ferns had their second try as Annetta Nuuausala crashed over, and they hit the front when Veainu bagged her second try.
But Australia struck back quickly, with Tazmin Gray grabbing an offload close to the Kiwi Ferns line and running in.
It set the match up for a thrilling finish, but Isabelle Kelly got her second try from an overlap on the right for the final score.
Meanwhile, in the first game of the triple-header, the Junior Kiwis went down 40-24 to the Junior Kangaroos, with Jackson Ferris scoring a hat-trick for New Zealand.