Canty skipper backing her team
Captain Stephanie Te Ohaere-Fox has backed Canterbury to go all the way after they tied up a home semifinal in the women’s provincial championship with a 55-34 win against Wellington yesterday.
Tighthead prop Te Ohaere-Fox, 32, says this was the most fearless side in all her years playing for Canterbury and that would increase their chances next week at home in Christchurch.
Canterbury looked the dominant side throughout the match and played 80 minutes of convincing rugby against a fired up Wellington side. Te Ohaere-Fox said she was proud of the way her side came out stronger than previous weeks and kept their cool even when a resurgent Wellington made a second-half run.
‘‘We need to play an 80-minute game, but I am happy with how we started and we wanted to start well, but once we get to 80 that will be even better,’’ she said.
‘‘That’s the thing we’ve been struggling on, but now we know we can do it we just need to put both halves together.’’
Behind 36-17 at the break, Wellington could have dropped their heads but instead gave the second half a decent crack, scoring first out of the blocks through No 8 and captain Jackie Patea-Fereti, who went over the line twice for her side.
Wellington began to spin the ball wide, which Canterbury did struggle to slow down for the first 10 minutes of the second half.
However, through the cool heads of Te Ohaere-Fox, halfback Kendra Cocksedge and first-five Charntay Poko, they were able to close out the match.
Te Ohaere-Fox said while she had played in her fair share of semifinal losses, the 2017 team had a new edge that would give them their best chance of winning the competition in several years.
‘‘We can only do what we can do and now we have a home semi. We’ve got good processes and we just need to have an 80-minute game. We need to know we can beat the whole competition.
‘‘We have grown since the Auckland game and we think we can do it. Having that new blood in – they’ve got no fear because they don’t know who they’re up against. Even if we are playing top sides they don’t know, they’re just playing rugby.’’
Te Ohaere-Fox said a home semifinal would be a huge advantage and hoped they would be opening in front of the Canterbury men’s side at AMI Stadium to really boost their momentum.
‘‘For all the girls we have had a good season, all the supporters have been great supporting us on Facebook but it’ll be good to have them here in person.’’
Canterbury will host Waikato next week while Counties Manukau will play Auckland.