Men are from Mars, women just want to get a move on
The Black Ferns have put women’s rugby on the big stage over the past six weeks, and the curious public have had a look and are starting to ask the same question: Is it just me or is the women’s game better to watch than the men’s?
It’s not just the Black Ferns’ players’ personalities, self awareness and sense of humour that is drawing in the eyeballs, it’s the actual rugby.
Why? Well the phrase doing the rounds this week is ‘‘ball-in-flow’’ time. ‘‘Importantly, ball in play is not the important metric, it is about ball in flow – fewer stoppages, people on the field, quicker scrums and lineouts etc. That’s the real story,’’ a World Rugby operative told Stuff.
You might even say men talk too much. They stand around having those mini conferences before lineouts and scrums, constantly bark at the referee, or beckon the trainer to discuss some vague leg issue every 10 minutes. The women just get on with things.
Here’s an example from last week. The Black Ferns won a penalty after about 13 seconds against France in the semifinal at Eden Park. About two seconds later Kendra Cocksedge took the quick tap and away they went.
That set the tone for the rest of the game. Everything the Black Ferns do is at pace, and it makes you appreciate how hard they must have worked their athletes to get them in the condition to make that style work.
The front-rowers are the perfect illustration of that. The demands being put on Pip Love, Georgia Ponsonby and Amy Rule are far greater than any men’s side asks of its props and hookers – with Ireland the possible exception.
Not only do they have to be strong enough to stand up to the French and English at the scrum, they are heavily used as ball carriers around the ruck.
Ponsonby and Love both carried for more metres than France No 10 Caroline Druin last week, and Rule wasn’t far off it.
To emphasise the point, replacement prop Krystal Murray carried the same number of metres as Black Ferns No 13 Stacey Fluhler.
It has created a ‘‘product’’, for want of a better word, that is unbelievably good to watch. Coach Wayne Smith probably has a few more grey hairs because of it, but we all owe him a debt of gratitude for giving the Black Ferns the licence to play, from No 1 to No 23.
There will always be naysayers of course. Some will point to Druin’s missed kick at the death last week as a sign of the flaws in the women’s game. Would it happen in the men’s game? They are mistaking technical proficiency for entertainment. They aren’t the same thing.
Besides, the men’s game has its own appeal: it shouldn’t need to poke holes in the women’s game to feel good about itself.
There was something thrilling about watching the All Blacks basically bulldoze the Welsh into the ground in Cardiff last week. In Southland’s Ethan de Groot, they have finally found a scary man in their pack.
In terms of pure aesthetics, however, the women’s game is better to watch. There is more ball in play time, yes, but there is also more of that magic word: flow. Roll on the final.