Moore wants to keep momentum
Glenn Moore is officially off contract, but the award-winning Black Ferns coach and Women’s Rugby World Cup winner would like to see their momentum continue.
Earlier this week Moore was named coach of the year at the New Zealand Rugby awards, but he still doesn’t know what involvement he will have with the side next year.
While the 58-year-old old former Highlanders coach and Blues Super Rugby assistant coach is keen to continue working with the Black Ferns, he said the details of both their schedule and move to professionalism were undecided.
It has been reported NZR are looking at taking the women’s game into a fully professional environment and has even launching a new competition for the 15s game, but New Zealand Rugby have not confirmed this.
Moore said he was none the wiser on the proposed competition, but was adamant there needed to be some momentum carried over from the world cup win and 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.’’
The New Zealand Herald reported NZR have made plans to introduce an eight-week competition played over the summer months including pay for the women’s players. It would begin in 2019.
However, NZR was still in talks with the Rugby Players Association negotiating a new memorandum for the women’s 15s 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 how the 7s 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 in the new year, he admitted it would need to be under the right conditions for him and for the team.
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 when the world cup finished.
‘‘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 to grow the game, We don’t want to be in a situation where are just in a holding pattern.
Moore was under no illusion that other nations weren’t thinking along the same lines, and said countries like England and France would become a threat if NZR din’t act quickly.
He was also concerned that current and upcoming players would turn to new codes if they didn’t have a professional side to aspire to.
‘‘What is clear to me is a number of other countries have progressed a lot. The gap has closed. These countries are getting better and better.’’
‘‘There is a risk that some of our players will leave for those competitions and that won’t be long. We have got to be serious about that and New Zealand Rugby are certainly aware of that.’’
‘‘I think there’s going to be an element of that whether we like it or not. That’s going to make it increasingly difficult to won world cups when you have top players being coached fulltime [in the UK].’’
Last week the Australian Rugby Union announced a a new Super W competition for their women’s 15s game, similar to that of NZR’s Farah Palmer Cup.
Moore said this was positive for women’s rugby, but proved others were moving forward.
He noted the women’s rugby league world cup, played last month, included several Black Ferns, showing the players will move to where they are being valued and needed.