Coach certain Black Ferns can rebound
With the rise of professionalism in women’s rugby in England, Black Ferns coach Glenn Moore is holding his best poker face ahead of the World Cup in August.
Despite their 29-21 loss to England last Saturday, Moore is confident he has the right squad to triumph in Ireland.
Women playing for the England rugby team are employed fulltime by the RFU without needing to work secondary jobs, while many of New Zealand’s players have fulltime jobs away from rugby.
But Moore isn’t blinking an eyelid and says the Black Ferns have to goods to deliver.
England ended New Zealand’s run of four successive World Cup titles with victory in 2014. However, before last Saturday, the Black Ferns had won the previous five clashes between the sides, including two last year, which had them as the No 1-ranked side in the world, with England second.
The England loss was Moore’s first Black Ferns coach, in his 12th test in charge.
‘‘I’m not looking at it as a disadvantage to us. We spoke about this during the week and there are two types of professionals.
‘‘One is you get paid to be professional and one is how you act – being professional in everything you do on and off the field and we do that really well.’’
But professionalism in women’s rugby is growing and unlike England’s top players, every Black Fern juggles work, training and family and earns little from the game itself.
Before the recent series with England, Australia and Canada, the Black Ferns had only played club rugby.
The team is on a two-week stand-down period when they chip away at their own rugby development and training until coaching resumes in mid July.
‘‘The girls have some really defined programmes and their strength and conditioning programmes are done with their provincial unions,’’ Moore said.
Compare this with the women’s sevens team who are employed fulltime by New Zealand Rugby and paid more than the 15s.
Moore was pleased several of the the sevens squad were drafted into his side ahead of the World Cup as it is a pinnacle event for the women’s game.
He hoped for more consistency and discipline from his side, who had let themselves down by receiving several card offences during their three-test series against Canada, England and Australia.
‘‘There are patches we played well and patches we need to do a lot of work on. Consistency and discipline are two very big things for us.
‘‘It cost us badly as we had a lot of yellow cards. We are giving away dumb penalties.’’
He said while the loss against world champions England was a warning sign they would have stiff competition in Ireland, it would also help his side make some needed adjustments.
‘‘It’s better happening now than over there. There are definitely areas we’ve improved in.’’
Moore would be looking at his squad and making a final selection by Wednesday before the team flies to the UK.