How Black Ferns paved the way for World Cup growth
They paid $5000 each to play in 1991. Now Tony Smith writes that some originals will gather at a heaving Eden Park and marvel at how far the women’s game has come.
When New Zealand’s first women’s Rugby World Cup captain Helen Littleworth is at the 2022 tournament opening ceremony she will reflect on how far the sport has come.
Littleworth led New Zealand to the inaugural tournament in 1991 in Wales when the players had to each pay $5000 for the privilege of representing their country.
The tournament was unsanctioned by an International Rugby Board (the forerunner of today’s World Rugby). A conservative body dominated by European unions was still coming to grips with the concept of women playing one of the toughest of contact sports.
Now, as New Zealand gets set to host its first World Cup, Littleworth says there’s been a huge progression over time. ‘‘Women’s rugby players don’t have to prove themselves any more.’’
There’s no official reunion scheduled, but Littleworth says ‘‘a lot of the old girls’’ are heading up to Eden Park for the World Cup opening day when the Black
Ferns play Australia as the last of a triple-header this Saturday.
It will be a chance to catch up over a few drinks and look back at how women’s rugby has evolved since their pioneering days.
Littleworth sees a certain symmetry in Wayne Smith coaching the Black Ferns at this year’s ramped-up tournament.
Smith was an acolyte of Laurie O’Reilly – the Black Ferns 1991 World Cup coach – and has spoken passionately about his pride at continuing his former mentor’s legacy.
Littleworth remembers Smith working alongside O’Reilly around the women’s team.
‘‘He used us for demonstrations at coaching clinics,’’ she said this week. ‘‘Ironically, Wayne Smith is now coaching the Black Ferns. It’s quite cool to see that after 30 years.’’
O’Reilly had assembled and coached the first New Zealand women’s team in 1989, drawing talent from other sports.
Anna Richards, who went on to become the first to win four Rugby World Cup gold medals, was recruited after O’Reilly’s wife Kay dropped her from the Canterbury netball team.
Littleworth had been a New Zealand hockey international. Canterbury five-eighth Debbie Chase had played rugby league and softball for New Zealand. Wing Helen Mahon was also an elite netballer and prop Donna Ewe was a national softball rep. Unlike today’s Black Ferns, many of who have been throwing a rugby ball around since they could walk, the ‘91 crew were late adopters. But they proved quick learners.
They had to do it the hard way, too.
There was no official NZ
Rugby Union backing or funding. Saving $5000 over 30 years ago was no mean feat for an amateur sportsperson, says Littleworth, a university student at the time.
‘‘There was a lot of fundraising, we did barbecues, sausage sizzles, things like that.’’
She suspects O’Reilly dipped into his own pocket to meet some costs. ‘‘I’m sure he paid for a lot of the jerseys.’’
While Littleworth says the current Black Ferns environment is ‘‘pretty impressive’’, she’s adamant that without O’Reilly, a
Christchurch lawyer who died in 1998 after three years as New Zealand Children’s Commissioner, the women’s game would not have grown as rapidly as it has. ‘‘It’s ultimately down to Laurie . . . I think women’s rugby will be forever grateful to him for what he’s done.’’
His memory is enshrined in the Laurie Reilly Cup, played for between the Black Ferns and Australia’s Wallaroos.
It was a different world today to 1991. ‘‘Now they are paid professionals and most of them are fulltime. It’s just chalk and cheese,’’ Littleworth says.
The tournament was condensed to keep costs down, with the top teams playing four games in nine days, with just 48 hours between the semifinals and final.
In 1991, the touring New Zealanders had to supply a touch judge for a warm-up game. Inside back Miriama Baker was attacked by a dog while running the line in a game against Bromley in Kent. O’Reilly told reporters at the time that the doberman pinscher bit her three times and gave her ‘‘a nasty shock’’.
The 1991 World Cup was also the first time many New Zealanders had seen women perform a haka.
It raised a few ripples, but University of Auckland academic Dr Ranginui Walker told reporters: ‘‘Women went to war in the old days, so if they want to do the haka it’s fine by me.
‘‘They play a mean game of rugby too.’’
They certainly did. The New Zealanders didn’t win the inaugural World Cup, but they were the tournament’s trailblazing entertainers. Helen Mahon (later a prominent netball coach) scored a hat-trick in the opening round 24-8 win over Canada and Debbie Chase bagged a double.
Canterbury wing Lesley Brett scored a hat-trick in the 24-6 win over Wales. But the New
Zealanders suffered a shock semifinal 7-0 loss to a bigger US team, with the American cocaptain Barbara Bond scoring from a pushover scrum.
The Kiwis, who shared third place with France, watched as USA beat England 19-6 in the final at the famous Cardiff Arms Park before 3000 fans.
The public – even in rugbymad New Zealand – had been sceptical about women playing rugby before that World Cup. Littleworth remembers people asking her, ‘‘don’t you get hurt? Don’t you hit your breasts?’
‘‘That’s just not a factor now, those questions just aren’t asked at all.’’
Respected New Zealand sportswriter David Leggat soon saw women’s rugby’s potential.
In 1991, Leggat went to Cardiff for the women’s series and was impressed with O’Reilly’s team, some of who, he wrote, ‘‘had the initials NZ shaved into the sides of their heads’’.
Leggat produced a prescient post-tournament piece debunking ‘‘myths’’ about women’s rugby, claiming the Kiwis had ‘‘managed to jolt a few misperceptions’’.
One was that women played rugby solely for fun. Not true, claimed Leggat, who said the New Zealanders ‘‘enjoy losing the same way [Gary] Whetton, [Grant] Fox and [Steve] McDowall enjoy being beaten’’.
He quoted try-scoring wing Lesley Brett saying: ‘‘I wouldn’t pay $5000 to come here and socialise. I came to play rugby, that’s my No 1 priority.’’
He also scotched another ‘‘myth’’ that women’s rugby was ‘‘a watered down soft-shoe version of The Real Thing’’.
‘‘The sprig marks down the back of Bay of Plenty flanker Gerry Paul, some of the rucking from an impressive Welsh forward pack and one particularly robust but legitimate tackle from Ross against Wales told their own story.’’
The New Zealand women’s team came under the national body’s orbit by 1994 when the next women’s World Cup was staged, but New Zealand did not enter as the tournament – hastily switched from the Netherlands to Scotland – was still not IRB-sanctioned.
Littleworth remembers saying in interview around the time it was confirmed New Zealand would not be entering that ‘‘women deserve the right to play any sport we like and deserve to be able to represent our country in that sport.’’
Now, she says, ‘‘things have come a long way since then’’.
Without the Kiwis – who hadn’t lost since 1991 – to contend with, England won the 1994 title, beating USA 38-23.
Littleworth, who retired from playing in 1996, was the Black Ferns’ physio at several World Cups, starting from their first title win in 1998. Her daughter, now 21, ‘‘became the first baby that toured with the Black Ferns’’ to the 2002 World Cup in Barcelona.
The 91 skipper is thus perfectly placed to chart the development of the Black Ferns – as the team became known after 1998. ‘‘There was a lot more structure by 98 because the rugby union came on board, it was significantly more professional,’’ she says.
With the backing came funding. No more sausage sizzles.
The 1998 tournament was the
first sanctioned by the IRB, tacit acceptance that women’s test rugby was here to stay. It took the world body until 2009, however, to acknowledge the winners of the first two World Cups in an official press release.
Here’s a breakdown of the World Cup campaigns from 1998 to now.
1998 (The Netherlands)
Sixteen teams entered, with New Zealand thrashing the United States 44-12 in the final at Amsterdam’s National Rugby Centre. Darryl Suasua’s team scored 344 points and conceded 32 in five games.
Kiwi centre Annaleah Rush scored 73 points in the tournament while wings Louisa Wall and Vanessa Cootes and fullback Tammi Wilson all grabbed seven tries. Cootes scored five tries in the final – the first women’s rugby international screened live on New Zealand television. Prop Regina Sheck – whose mother had died just before the tournament – was also a popular scorer.
The ‘98 triumph also earned the New Zealanders an official nickname. The team had objected to being dubbed the ‘Gal Blacks’ by the media, so in August 1998, Prime Minister Jenny Shipley announced at parliamentary reception that the side would henceforth be known as the Black Ferns.
Coach: Darryl Suasua. Captain: Farah Palmer
2002 (Spain)
The Black Ferns did what the All Blacks had thus far failed to achieve – win back-to-back World Cups. Sixteen teams lined up in Spain with the tournament final held at Barcelona’s Olympic Stadium (the 1992 Olympic Games’ venue).
Just 2500 watched the Black Ferns beat England 19-9, with halfback Monique Hirovanaa and flanker Cheryl Waaka scoring tries while Tammi Wilson (2) and Hannah Myers kicked penalties. Coach: Darryl Suasua. Captain: Farah Palmer.
2006 (Canada)
Farah Palmer’s last stand as
Black Ferns skipper. The current NZ Rugby board member remains the only NZ rugby player to captain teams to three World Cup titles. It was also a third consecutive crown for veteran first five-eighths Anna Richards.
The Black Ferns breezed through their first four games, scoring 177 points and conceding just 17, but had to show their defensive mettle to hold out England, 25-17, in the final at Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium. Locks Monalisa Codling and Victoria Heighway, wing Stephanie Mortimer and fullback Amiria Marsh scored tries while halfback Emma Jensen slotted a conversion and a penalty.
Coach: Jed Rowlands. Captain: Farah Palmer.
2010 (England)
Remarkably, Anna Richards was 45 years and 306 days young when she became the first woman in rugby history to scoop four World Cup winners medals.
Richards was one of two Black Ferns sinbinned in the final, won 13-0 by the Kiwis, and watched by a world-record 13,253 fans at The Stoop, the Harlequins club’s Twickenham ground.
Ferns wing Carla Hohepa scored a try, while Kelly Brazier landed one more penalty than English goalkicker Katy McLean to decide the game. Hohepa was the tournament’s joint top tryscorer with seven.
Defence and resolve proved the deciding factor again, especially when down to 14 players. Skipper and backrower Melissa Ruscoe hailed ‘‘the pride and passion and the jersey you’re wearing’’ and on arrival home called for New Zealand Rugby to reinstate the women’s NPC, which had gone into recess.
Coach: Brian Evans. Captain: Melissa Ruscoe.
2014 (France)
The Black Ferns’ winning streak came to an end with a fifth-place finish. A shock 17-14 pool play defeat to Ireland left the NZers on tenterhooks. Their hopes were dashed when England and
Canada drew to reach the semifinals at New Zealand’s expense.
The Ireland victory over the Black Ferns, after a late solo try by Alison Miller, still ranks as one of the greatest upsets in women’s rugby history. It was only the Black Ferns’ second World Cup defeat, dating back to 1991.
The Black Ferns finished pool play with a 34-3 win over the United States. They thrashed the same side 55-5 in the fifth-place playoff with dual international Honey Hireme – now a Sky TV analyst – claiming four tries.
Coach: Brian Evans. Captain: Fiao’o Fa’amausili.
2017 (Ireland)
On to Ireland where the University College of Dublin hosted all pool games before the playoffs switched to Belfast.
Glenn Moore’s Black Ferns celebrated a fifth world title, scoring 299 points and conceding 61 across five games.
The final, at Ulster’s Kingspan Stadium, was a cracker before a record 17,115 World Cup crowd. The Black Ferns finished strongly to beat England 41-32 after trailing 17-10 at halftime.
Captain Fiao’o Fa’amausili became the second Black Ferns hooker – after three-time champion Farah Palmer – to hoist the Rugby World Cup.
Prop Toka Natua, the player of the match, was the Black Ferns’ standout in the Belfast final with three tries in a 20-minute span while Selica Winitana dotted down twice. Charmaine Smith and Kendra Cocksedge also added tries, with Cocksedge contributing three conversions. Coach: Glenn Moore. Captain: Fiao’o Fa’amausili.
Legacy
A year after winning the World Cup in Belfast, Kendra Cocksedge beat a clutch of All Blacks to win New Zealand Rugby’s Kelvin R Tremain Memorial Player of the Year award in 2018. That would have been deemed impossible in 1991.