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Women's Rugby World Cup: the "Black Ferns", a team apart

2022-11-02T12:53:09.054Z


Opposed to the French team in the semi-final next Saturday (7:30 am in France), the New Zealanders are trying to find their place in a country where the All Blacks are invading kings.


The New Zealand women's rugby team, better known as the "

Black Ferns

" (the black ferns, in reference to the country's emblem), is a formation apart in a country which devotes a real cult to its “

All Blacks

”.

Saturday, for the two semi-finals of the World Cup, Eden Park, where the men's team had won the first World Cup in history in 1987 against France, then again in 2011, still against the Blues, should welcome nearly 40,000 spectators to applaud "

their

" Black Ferns, a record.

A sign that women's rugby has passed a milestone.

To discover

  • The 2023 World Cup schedule

Nevertheless, in the "

land of the long white cloud

" (the translation of Aotearoa, the Maori name of New Zealand), if indeed rugby union is the most popular sport, the Black Ferns have suffered there by a history of problems similar to those of any women's sport: underfunding, lack of support and publicity.

The New Zealand Federation (NZRU) only began to finance its women's team in 1995, providing it with professional coaches and tools to improve its performance and having its players sign contracts.

Thanks to the integration of the septists in particular, the team has grown considerably, becoming one of the best in the world of rugby, to the point of winning five world championship titles.

free speech

But with the Covid-19 pandemic, the Black Ferns came to a sudden halt.

Deprived of travel and therefore of international meetings, the New Zealanders paid the price during their autumn tour of Europe a year ago, suffering four heavy defeats: two against England (43-12 and 56-15) and two against France (38-13 and 29-7).

A negative series which had the consequence not only of freeing the voice of the players, some, in particular of Maori origin, accusing the management of hurtful remarks towards them, but also of changing coaches.

You want my politically correct answer or the other?

Eloise Blackwell

Since the arrival in mid-April of Wayne Smith, the former All Blacks coach, the Black Ferns have regained their rugby: they finished first in the group stage of the World Cup, scoring 209 points (including 35 tries) in four matches .

But their matches in New Zealand are only accessible via a paid service, on the Spark telecommunications platform, when those of the “

All Blacks

” at the 2023 World Cup will have the honors of the public channel TVNZ.

Asked about this by AFP, during a training session for the Ponsonby Rugby women's team, where the players come with their babies in strollers, the former second line of the Black Ferns Eloise Blackwell, world champion in 2017, responds with a pirouette.

"

Do you want my politically correct answer or the other?"

The truth is that we do the same job as the All Blacks

, ”she says, hoping that “

the special atmosphere and the enthusiasm

” of the supporters seen in Whangarei (north), during the quarters finals, point to a brighter future for women's rugby in her country.

Read alsoWomen's Rugby World Cup: France will face New Zealand in the semi-finals

Read alsoWomen's Rugby World Cup: France-Italy video summary

Because in New Zealand if a fifth of the 150,000 NZRU licensees are women, women's rugby "

remains mainly amateur, with players who work the day or are mothers, like those of the five teams based in Auckland

, ”explains Shane van Velzen, general manager of Grammar TEC, who has never formed a Black Fern, but several All Blacks, as well as Ben Lam, the Montpellier winger, to AFP.

Despite everything, becoming a Black Fern remains a "

dream

" for young New Zealand girls, Milahn Ieremia, of the Ponsonby Rugby club, whose favorite player is Ruby Tui, told AFP, "

because she's a winger like me .

".

And this dream is not so inaccessible as that.

The second line of the Bleues Manae Feleu (22 years old, 5 caps), originally from Wallis-and-Futuna and who went to high school in New Zealand, in Hawke's Bay, will find one of her friends from the era that became a Black Fern, the mainstay Awhina Tangen-Wainohu.

Source: lefigaro

All sports articles on 2022-11-02

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