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Black Ferns squad selected for O'Reilly Cup and WXV 1

New Zealand perform the Haka ahead of the Pool A Rugby World Cup 2021 match between Wales and New Zealand at Waitakere Stadium on October 16, 2022, in Auckland, New Zealand.

At the beginning of the week, a Black Ferns squad of 30 players was selected for the O’Reilly Cup against Australia on September 30th in Hamilton and the inaugural WXV1 tournament in October/November.

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A Black Ferns XV was laos picked to tussle with Manu Sina on September 23 in Pukekohe.

Established World Cup-winning Black Ferns Pip Love, Kendra Reynolds, and Joanah Ngan-Woo were cut from the Black Ferns squad while Grace Brooker was demoted to the Black Ferns XV.

The new caps in the Blacks Ferns are Auckland props Sophie Fisher and Chryss Viliko, Manawat? loose forward Layla Sae, and Canterbury wing Martha Mataele.

The latter two selections are not a surprise. Sae is a contracted Black Fern and Mataele has scored at least a single try in ten of her last 13 games for Canterbury and was strong in Aupiki for champions Matat?.

Fisher and Viliko have been steady improvers throughout the season and busted the hinges on the door in the FPC final. Fisher is a converted lock who covers tighthead and kicks goals. Viliko, a big and athletic loosehead is only 20.

Black Ferns Squad:
Kate Henwood (34, Chiefs Manawa, Bay of Plenty, 2)
Krystal Murray (30, Hurricanes Poua, Northland, 10)
Chryss Viliko (20, Blues, Auckland, new cap)
Georgia Ponsonby (23, Matat?, Canterbury, 16)
Luka Connor (26, Chiefs Manawa, Bay of Plenty, 16)
Natalie Delamere (26, Matat?, Bay of Plenty, 3)
Amy Rule (23, Matat?, Canterbury, 16)
Sophie Fisher (24, Blues, Auckland, new cap)
Tanya Kalounivale (24, Chiefs Manawa, Waikato, 8)
Charmaine Smith (31, Chiefs Manawa, Northland, 27)
Chelsea Bremner (28, Chiefs Manawa, Canterbury, 15)
Maiakawanakaulani Roos (22, Blues, Auckland, 17)
Alana Bremner (26, Matat?, Canterbury, 15)
Kennedy Simon (26, Chiefs Manawa, Waikato, 16) – Co-Captain
Layla Sae (22, Hurricanes Poua, Manawat?, new cap)
Liana Mikaele Tu’u (21, Blues, Auckland, 14)
Lucy Jenkins (22, Matat?, Canterbury, 2)
Ariana Bayler (26, Blues, Waikato, 7)
Arihiana Marino-Tauhinu (31, Chiefs Manawa, Counties Manukau, 15)
Iritana Hohaia (23, Hurricanes Poua, Taranaki, 3)
Rosie Kelly (23, Matat?, Canterbury, 3)
Ruahei Demant (28, Blues, Auckland, 29) – Co-Captain
Amy du Plessis (24, Matat?, Canterbury, 10)
Logo-I-Pulotu Lemapu Atai’i (Sylvia) Brunt (19, Blues, Auckland, 9)
Patricia Maliepo (20, Blues, Auckland, 3)
Katelyn Vahaakolo (23, Blues, Auckland, 2)
Martha Mataele (24, Matat?, Canterbury, new cap)
Mererangi Paul (24, Chiefs Manawa, Counties Manukau, 2)
Renee Holmes (23, Matat?, Waikato, 13)
Ruby Tui (31, Counties Manukau, 10)

A Black Ferns XV of 27 players, with half the squad under the age of 22, was a compelling selection and suggests plenty of talent exists.

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The youngest player in the team is 17-year-old Wellington centre and winger Justine McGregor. The Pride didn’t win a single game in the Premiership, but McGregor thrived. Her first-round hat-trick in a 29-58 loss to Canterbury was stunning.

With 12 tries Angelica Vahai was the leading try scorer in the FPC. The 18-year-old Auckland wing is still in high school and thrilled with her graceful and clinical finishing.

Otago centre Cheyenne Cunningham is a shepherd who travels ten hours a week just to play for the Spirit. She has an eye for the try line and good all-around skills at centre.

Her teammate Maia Joseph won the Fiao’o Fa’amausili Medal as the best and fairest player in 2022 and continued to flourish this year. Maia is the daughter of Japan coach and former All Blacks loose forward Jamie Joseph.

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With 130 tackles, openside Leah Miles was the FPC’s top tackler and another Otago player rewarded for a strong season.

The weakest aspect of the New Zealand game is tight forward play though mauling was much better this season and there is some real expertise in scrum coaching now.

Prop Moomooga Palu (Hawke’s Bay) and hooker Atlanta Lolohea (Canterbury) are very much investments in the future with the blessed gift of rare size. Canterbury locks Laura Bayfield and Emma Dermody looked most at home among World Cup-winning Black Ferns.

Will we see a post-World Cup Surge? Overtures about a groundswell of new interest in the competition following the Black Ferns meteoric World Cup success proved misleading.

While the Farah Palmer Cup Premiership final was well attended, the fan base at actual games was small and cosigned to those close to the players and a few hearty fans.

Media coverage possibly shrunk from last year with much focus on the All Blacks World Cup campaign and governance issues within New Zealand Rugby. When Ruby Tui returned there were frivolous stories about her involvement rather than informed analysis about the actual games.

All fixtures were televised live on Sky TV. The diligent Taylah Johnson and veterans Ken Laban and Rikki Swannell provided insight as did some ex-Black Ferns who were refreshing new voices.

However, much of the commentary left a lot to be desired. Basic facts were often misquoted, or just absent from a broadcast. There appeared to be a refusal to criticise poor play and not enough work was done on pronunciation.

Why Black Ferns Sevens players are consistently shielded from the FPC when the World Series doesn’t start until November is a mystery. The Black Ferns Sevens have enjoyed a consistently higher level of profile and training than their fifteen aside counterparts. The competition would undoubtedly be enhanced by their presence even in select games.

In 2022 there were 14 games decided by 20 points or more. This season 21 of the 44 matches were decided by 20 points or more.

Bridging the gap between the strongest and the weakest unions isn’t a straightforward task but with National Secondary School championships Manukura only playing four fully-fledged games this season strengthening high school rugby should be a priority.

In the Premiership Canterbury only finished two places ahead of Hawke’s Bay. Yet on August 12, Canterbury beat the Tui 84-14 in Hastings. Canterbury fielded nine contracted Black Ferns.

They have a full-time coach, Jimmy Sinclair, who works closely with Matat? rugby director and Black Ferns World Cup-winning assistant coach Whitney Hansen.

By contrast, Hawkes Bay has five teams in their senior club competition. They played a single round that concluded in May. Coach Sione Cherrington-Kite is a primary school teacher at Te Kura o Kimi Ora.

Eight players are a part of the Hawke’s Bay Academy with regular access to union gym facilities. Others are only welcome if they ‘buy into the programme.’ Because of work commitments that’s often not possible so they train elsewhere.

Some players were even asked to leave when trying to do voluntary extras. Hawkes Bay does have a union-employed personal trainer who assists the Tui.

The governance review into New Zealand Rugby which indicated Provincial Unions are drastically overspending on high-performance male programs and are in a financially dire position raises question marks about the future sustainability of a 13-team women’s competition.

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J
JW 2 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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