From hostels to hotels
Same teams but a different world for Cup finalists
Four of the last five women’s Rugby World Cup finals have been between the Black Ferns and England.
Saturday night’s Eden Park final between the game’s two great rivals will be the fifth between them in six tournaments.
The familiar outcome in the deciders has been a New Zealand win – four from four in 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2017 – but their latest encounter for the game’s biggest prize is a different occasion for many reasons.
Assistant coach Wes Clarke and loose forward Sarah Hirini were with the Black Ferns squad when they beat England 41-32 in their thrilling Belfast final in 2017 before a crowd of 17,115.
Clarke and Hirini said this week’s buildup to Saturday’s final with England, when a recordbreaking crowd of more than 40,000 is expected at Eden Park, feels similar within their group to 2017.
Outside, however, it’s a totally different story.
Five years later, they meet again but in an age when the professionalism of women’s rugby has started to accelerate, there are unprecedented crowds and public interest, and the game’s profile appears to be taking off during the first women’s World Cup in New Zealand.
The teams this tournament are staying in plush Auckland hotels. This week, the Black Ferns at the Rydges and England are nearby at the Grand Millennium.
Five years ago, the Black Ferns were staying in a university hostel in Belfast.
‘‘That was the big difference,’’ Clarke said. ‘‘We were in hostel accommodation at a university. We got to see the other teams a lot more and there was lots more interaction.
‘‘This World Cup, we’re in more of a bubble. However, in terms of the players and the feeling in the group, it’s very similar.’’
There was a domestic audience of more than 1 million who watched last Saturday’s nerveshredding 25-24 semifinal win over France at Eden Park – a figure much larger than any for women’s rugby before – with more expected to watch the final.
World Rugby has said the tournament’s opening day, when the Black Ferns played Australia at Eden Park, attracted an average audience in New Zealand of 600,000 – five times more than the figure for the 2017 final between New Zealand and England.
‘‘This is what we’ve wanted for a long time and everyone is turning up to the party. It’s on us players to carry on the momentum,’’ Hirini said.
‘‘I’ve had messages from players in other teams saying ‘thank you for what you guys are doing here in Aotearoa’. It’s not just for us but the next generation.
‘‘This is changing women’s sport in New Zealand. The support we’re getting, I love it.’’
The Black Ferns suffered their first significant injury blow of the tournament after powerful No 8 Liana Mikaele-Tu’u was ruled out of the final with a thumb injury.
Assistant coach Wes Clarke confirmed yesterday that the 20-year-old would miss the Eden Park decider after coming off at halftime in their semifinal win over France on Saturday.
‘‘She’s gutted,’’ Clarke said.
The world was whispering. Some were even saying it out loud. The All Blacks had lost their aura. The mighty pine tree had fallen and there were only saplings left in the forest. The fear factor had gone. One of the great teams in sport was fading. The men in black were turning grey.
Yes, some of that was and is true. But many people said the same of Brazil’s iconic football team. They said the magic was gone forever after they were humiliated 7-1 by Germany at the 2014 World Cup. But it wasn’t so, just as it isn’t so for the All Blacks. A reputation that has been created for over 100 years cannot be destroyed in a couple of years.
However hard you try, you can’t just trash an aura overnight.
The cynics might raise an eyebrow and say that New Zealand has pushed that theory to its limits over in recent times. They have made mistake after mistake at administrative, coaching and playing level since the Lions tour of 2017. But despite all of that chaos, the All Blacks can still summon the force. It’s an almost mystical thing. There is still mana in those black shirts.
Mark Jones, the former Wales wing who had a spell coaching at the Crusaders, thought before the game at the weekend: ‘‘This is really a great opportunity for Wales to record that elusive win against the All Blacks. New Zealand’s recent form over the last 12-18 months has given a lot of teams that sense that perhaps their aura is flickering a little bit. Teams are not necessarily beaten before they take the field as perhaps we’ve seen in recent years.’’
Jones was far from alone in that assessment. Former All Black and current Japan coach Jamie Joseph said: ‘‘Everyone is thinking about the All Blacks and that’s part of their armour. Having played for the All Blacks, one of the things we used to talk about 25 years ago was that everyone was a wee bit scared of us. Perhaps that’s not the case any more, I’m not sure.’’
Michael Leitch, of the Chiefs and Japan, added: ‘‘In the past, teams have come up against the All Blacks and psychologically you think they are unbeatable but now those cracks are showing.’’
These are two New Zealanders who are thinking the unthinkable, so it is no surprise that others are picking up on it. Did Pablo Matera find a bunch of supermen in his time at the Crusaders or did he discover he was the best forward on the pitch?
When Warren Gatland had a coffee with Felipe Contepomi, the Argentina assistant coach told
him, with feedback from Matera, that the All Blacks were now a team ‘‘playing catchup’’, having previously been six months ahead of everyone else.
Now I don’t think those observations are by any means untrue, but however hard you try, you can’t just trash an aura overnight. Look at Tiger Woods. He crashed his aura into a fire hydrant and into a tree. He has popped pill after pill and he had been left by his wife after lurid details of his sex life came out. And yet he walks onto a golf course and, as if by magic, the aura is still there – even now, even after all the ravages and disgraces.
Formula One driver Carlos Sainz said: ‘‘It is the aura Tiger has around him, the charisma. Even now, you can just see he creates something around him every time he walks around a golf course that no-one can explain, and everyone wants him to win. After all the polemics he has been through, 99 per cent of people still want Tiger to win. Tell me an athlete that has this aura. No one.
‘‘For me, it’s a case study, because it’s something superinteresting how someone can create so much charisma that everyone wants you to win, even if you’ve made a lot of mistakes.’’
And so it is with the All Blacks. They crushed Wales just as they have for the previous 70 years. ‘‘Efficiency’’ was coach Ian Foster’s treasured word afterward. It might just as well have been ‘‘ruthless.’’ The All
Blacks forwards dominated the advantage line.
It was significant that Scott Barrett and Dalton Papalii were both back in the pack. It was Barrett’s back-up motor that drove Codie Taylor over the line twice. And Papalii’s power is a huge asset in the scrummage, in the maul and on the gain line. Sam Cane couldn’t have made Papalii’s marauding run that awakened the beast.
Is this, then, the end for captain Cane? It has to be, because another part of the All Blacks’ aura is that they have nearly always had icons as captains. Sam Whitelock is an icon. Sam Cane has been a fine player, but he is not an icon. It really is as simple as that
The reassertion of the All Blacks could not have come at a better time because surely it must help the Black Ferns this weekend.
‘This is Anfield’ is the chilling message to visitors as they walk out onto Liverpool’s revered home turf. ‘This is Eden Park’ could hang above the tunnel as teams walk out onto the All Blacks’ sacred home ground, where they have not lost since 1994.
That mana must surely help the Black Ferns in the final of the women’s World Cup against England. Wayne Smith’s women were mighty fortunate to beat France in the semifinal and not just because Caroline Drouin, the French 10, missed a simple enough kick to win the match.
No, they were fortunate because the referee somehow found seven consecutive momentum-changing penalties to award them at the start of the second half. It was a nonsense, but it’s the sort of nonsense that happens when teams have built an aura and a legacy at a stadium.
Ruahei Demant said of the Eden Park crowd after the match: ‘‘Man, I don’t think people realise how much it actually makes a difference to us out there on the field. To know our families, our country, are supporting us, are proud of us.’’
Yes, the Ferns will have to start better in the final, a recurring problem against the better teams. Yes, they will have to sort out the terrible frailty around the pick and go where France snaffled so many turnovers. Yes, they will have to kick much better, because France turned bad kicks from Kendra Cocksedge and Renee Holmes into points, and England will do the same.
But at least the Black Ferns have a 10-point start. It’s called Eden Park.
It’s called aura.