Wales blown out by New Zealand
WALES could find no answer to the power and pace of hosts New Zealand as their Rugby World Cup run came to an end in a 55- 3 quarter- final defeat in Whangarei.
Portia Woodman scored her 19th and 20th World Cup tries to overtake England’s Sue Day as the all-time leading try scorer in tournament history.
Woodman got New Zealand’s first 13 minutes in before Ruby Tui, Sarah Hirini and Amy Rule powered the Black Ferns into a 26-3 half-time lead.
And it got no better for Wales after the break, with Woodman’s second coming three minutes into the second half, and the defending champions pulled further clear as Luka Connor scored twice, Alana Bremner crossed and Ruahei Demant finished things off.
Wales, beaten 56-12 by New Zealand in pool play, always knew they faced an uphill challenge to knock out the tournament hosts but were never able to get a grip on the game as the Black Ferns’ powerful pack overran them.
Wales coach Ioan Cunningham said: “[The gap] is still fairly big obviously, the scoreboard doesn’t lie.
“The intensity, speed, they sustain it for 80 minutes and that’s somewhere we’ve got to get to. But I’m so proud of the girls and their effort, especially in the first half. We asked them to front up physically and they did, we hassled them and forced them into errors and I’m really proud of their effort.
“We came here to get out of the pool and we achieved that, to reach the quarter-final is brilliant. We’ve only been pro as a group since January and it’s exciting where we can go looking forward for the next few years and maybe more success at the 2025 World Cup.”
New Zealand will play France in the semi-final after they produced a dominant second-half performance to blow Italy away 39-3.
The contest at Semenoff Stadium in Whangarei, was fairly even at half time, with France up 10-3 before they returned to pile on the points. They enjoyed a stunning 74 per cent of territory and 61 per cent of possession throughout the match, which allowed them to score four second-half tries to go with one before the break, with winger Joanna Grisez scoring three of them.