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England react to dominating 'battle of the titans' to sweep WXV 1
By Jamie Wall
England captain and newly crowned World Rugby Women’s Player of the Year Marlie Packer said she was “on cloud nine” after taking out both the award and the inaugural WXV 1 tournament.
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“To be honest, at the end, I actually had some tears. I think, you know, not just the last four weeks, being here in New Zealand, we as a team have been really pushed.”
The 33-12 win over the Black Ferns at Go Media Mt Smart Stadium was a record loss for the world champions on home soil, with Packer’s England side enjoying a stunning opening quarter that saw them lead 19-0.
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“It’s quite emotional but I’m just proud of all the girls in the way they performed tonight. They’ve backed up every game. This experience, you know, it’s not just the squad of 23. It’s a whole squad affair. And you know, the girls that didn’t play tonight prepared us for the performance tonight. So, I’ll take my hat off to them as well.”
England interim coach Louis Deacon echoed his skipper’s thoughts.
“You can’t just rely on one part of the game, set piece are one of our super strengths,” Deacon said.
“But like I said before the game, we’re going to need more than that today. The Black Ferns are an outstanding team. They really tested us and I think if you’re going to go toe to toe with them, you’ve got to have all parts of the game going. And that’s what the pleasing thing is. So yeah, like I said before, massively proud.”
Packer dismissed speculation that the win was fuelled by a desire to make up for last year’s Rugby World Cup final loss to New Zealand.
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“I think this week it’s been really different,” she said.
“We actually haven’t focused on that at all. Like we talk about the goal we set 11 weeks ago when you start pre-season and you know, the essences kept on coming back to us like you’re feeling like it’s because of this and our target is to be putting in our best performance come this week.”
Black Ferns co-captain Kennedy Simon said it was difficult to stop a Red Roses side in that sort of mood, no matter how good the preparation was.
“They’re methodical, you know,” Simon said.
“A well-oiled engine. We did preview that they were going to carry around the edge like that, and it was just about winning those moments. That’s how they got the first try and then the next one that followed. So I can see it was going to take a little learnings from this. You know, that’s just history. And like I said, they’re a great side.”
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Black Ferns Director of Rugby Allan Bunting said his side “didn’t really get their game going.”
“Towards the end of the first half, we didn’t bring them around a bit. And the way we started the second half and if we might have scored one more try, that might have been a bit different. We were let down a bit with discipline and a bit of handling.”
England centre Helena Rowland echoed her coaches assessment of where the Red Roses are at.
“Obviously a big result for us. We felt we’ve been building since had two games, we’ve got a lot of new stuff that’s been brought in and I think you can see today it really starting to come together and yeah, culminated in that result for us.”
Try scorer Sarah Bern said playing the Black Ferns is “always amazing”.
“It’s always going to be a challenge, is always going to be that Battle of the Titans. And you just got to keep going. You got to keep pushing on. It was amazing to play them tonight and it was brilliant just to get the win.”
Also, “titans”? I only saw one.
Huge congratulations to the Red Roses.
The Black Ferns were awful. Basic skills rubbish, missing 12 tackles in the first 20 minutes alone, pack lacking physicality, ill disciplined, allowing Red Roses to run high metres after contact, the list goes on & on & on.
The Red Roses played EXACTLY how we thought they would. And yet, the Ferns seemed ill prepared, unprepared, & somewhat shell shocked. Talk about an embarrassing letdown. They’ve gone backwards in the 12 months under Bunting.
Sort yourselves out team.