Wallaroos taking heart from strong opening half against the Black Ferns

The Wallaroos are taking enough heart from their opening half hour against the Black Ferns to believe they won’t be making up the numbers at the Rugby World Cup.

Chief among the positivity is Bienne Terita, who ran in twice as Australia screamed to a scarcely believable 17-0 lead over the hosts.

The teenage Sevens convert backed up her debut Test outing against New Zealand in Adelaide six weeks ago, when she also scored a double against the Black Ferns.

“The way she finished those tries today, she showed not only is she a world-class sevens player, she’s a world-class 15s winger as well,” coach Jay Tregonning said.

“Today she worked really hard for those tries too. It shows her skill set, her ability. Our depth on the wing is outstanding. There’s a couple of really quality players that missed out on selection this week.”

Terita made it look easy, diving past superstar Portia Woodman for her second, but admitted butterflies as she took the field in front of 40,000 people at Eden Park – a world record for women’s rugby.

“The nerves were definitely there, playing at their home ground, in front of their home crowd,” she said.

“We put the pressure on early, which was good, just getting behind each other continually through the first half of the game.

“It wasn’t the result we wanted but I think we executed our game plan pretty well.”

The first half hour was as good as it got for Australia, running out of puff to lose 41-17, New Zealand’s 23rd consecutive defeat of the Wallaroos.

Tregonning said the team didn’t lack for belief.

“We’ve got the belief there. With every game this year, we’ve started well,” he said.

“It’s the second time (this year) we’ve led about Black Ferns at halftime and that’s the only the second time in history that we’ve done that.

“We’ve shown that we can play. We’ve shown that we’re more than competitive with these teams that are well above us in the world rankings.”

Next up for Australia is a clash with Scotland next Saturday in Whangarei.

The Wallaroos will need to beat both Scotland and Wales to be sure of a quarter-final place, but will remain in the hunt for the knockouts with one win.