A lot of tests but just one at home
Sarah Hirini was adamant the Black Ferns’ Rugby World Cup final win over England at Eden Park on Saturday ‘‘has to be the start of something special’’.
But while they are set to play more tests than they ever have before outside a World Cup year in 2023, it’s possible only one of them will be on home soil.
Hirini gave a glimpse at the team’s immediate future during the celebration event at Te Komititanga Square in downtown Auckland on Sunday, when she said they were due to have eight tests next year.
Six of those will come as part of World Rugby’s new WXV competition, which involves 18 teams competing across three tiers, and encompasses existing competitions such as the Pacific Four Series and the Six Nations.
The Pacific Four Series will be the Black Ferns’ first assignment in 2023 and though specific dates are yet to be confirmed, it is expected to take place in late May and early June.
It is also expected to take place in a single country, as it did this year in New Zealand, with one of the other competing nations – Australia, Canada and the United States – playing host as they play each other once.
The top three teams from the Pacific Four Series, which will almost certainly include the Black Ferns, will qualify for WXV 1, which will pit them against the top three teams from the Six Nations – likely to be England, France and one of Ireland, Italy, Scotland or Wales – in a centralised venue to be determined.
If New Zealand doesn’t host the first WXV 1 tournament, that would leave the home test in the two-match Laurie O’Reilly Cup with Australia’s Wallaroos, expected to be played in July or August, as the Black Ferns’ only home fixture in 2023, barring any additions to the schedule.
NZ Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson said at the celebration event that the format for the Pacific Four Series was ‘‘still being put together at the moment – whether part of it’s played here or overseas’’.
That means the Black Ferns’ number of home tests was ‘‘to be confirmed in the coming months’’.
A real coup would be getting England and/or France, who finished second and third at the World Cup, to return to New Zealand at some stage before the next event in 2025, for what would surely be hotly-anticipated rematches following their narrow losses to the Black Ferns in the final stages.
England had visited New Zealand just twice in the decade prior to the World Cup, in 2013 and 2017, while France had never been here before.
If the Black Ferns were to only play one home test in 2023, that would be on par with 2019 and 2018, where their only home outings were Laurie O’Reilly Cup matches that were curtain-raisers for Bledisloe Cup tests between the All Blacks and the Wallabies.
They played at home three times in 2017, hosting Australia,
Canada and England for a series where each team played each other – a total of three matches each – in the space of eight days.
While there was one standalone matchday in Christchurch, the other two Black Ferns tests were curtain-raisers for a Super Rugby clash and a match between New Zealand Mā ori and the touring British and Irish Lions.
Two Black Ferns tests were played in New Zealand in 2016, both against the Wallaroos – one as a curtain-raiser to a Bledisloe
Cup test at Eden Park and another as a standalone fixture at North Harbour Stadium four days later.
Robinson said ‘‘there was definitely merit’’ in having more standalone matches for the Black Ferns, pointing to his push to have the inaugural tour by a women’s British and Irish combined team take place in New Zealand at some stage before the Lions men return to these shores in 2029.
There is likely to be a degree of caution in assessing how the crowds seen at the World Cup will translate to lower profile fixtures,
with the second season of Super Rugby Aupiki – the first with crowds allowed to attend – set to be a useful barometer in February and March.
Eden Park was only just over half full when the Black Ferns played France in their semifinal before selling out for the final with an official crowd figure of 42,579, while their last standalone test before the World Cup, against Australia in Christchurch in August, attracted just 3813 fans.
But as Hirini said, the fruits of the Black Ferns’ efforts over the past five weeks, where they’ve attracted the five largest crowds for women’s sports events in New Zealand history, have ‘‘to be the start of something new’’.
‘‘Obviously we’ve wanted it for a very long time and for it to finally happen now is pretty special. But it needs to continue. It has to.
‘‘We play rugby that everyone wants to watch and everyone wants to turn up for, so why not invest in it? Why not back it?
‘‘Honestly, we’re going to create something special for a very long time.’’