In a Women’s World Cup short on jeopardy and drama, credit to Ruby Tui for stirring things up on the opening weekend in her role as a BBC pundit. A star of New Zealand’s World Cup-winning team in 2022, Tui was omitted from the Black Ferns squad for this tournament.
She suggested Ireland might hold back against her countrywomen in Sunday’s Pool C decider in Brighton. Her thought process suggests Ireland will want to keep some of their powder dry for the quarter-finals a week later when, most likely, Scott Bemand’s team will meet France.
“We heard on BBC Radio 5 Live the other night that Ireland potentially aren’t going to take the Black Ferns game seriously, which I thought was a huge call on the show,” said Tui, speaking during coverage of England’s opening night defeat of the USA.
“We had someone call through from the Irish camp and I think that says a lot, because if you’re the Black Ferns, we need to build. That’s what they said live on the radio to me, but I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it. I think it’s a double bluff and as Black Ferns, we can’t be carrying on with that nonsense. We can’t take any notice of it. We’ve got to focus on ourselves.”
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Nobody in the Irish camp appears to have a clue what Tui is taking about and Bemand also isn’t buying it. The Irish coach diplomatically batted away any suggestion that he and his side might not take next Sunday’s game seriously.
So, for all the headlines this episode has generated, most likely it is much ado about nothing. Yet the idea is not without merit. In their planning for the group stages, Bemand and his assistants would, at the very least, have considered holding back several key players next Sunday with a place in the quarter-finals secured.
Ireland’s joyous World Cup start
Ask yourself this: would the Ireland players and supporters take a win over France and a place in the semi-finals in exchange for losing to New Zealand on Sunday? Of course they would.
Rewind to 2014, when Ireland recorded a historic 17-14 win over New Zealand in France after Niamh Briggs converted tries by Heather O’Brien and Alison Miller and landed a penalty. Reflecting on that achievement in her guise as a pundit with RTÉ last Sunday, Briggs echoed Miller in admitting that she’d have taken a semi-final win over England in exchange for that pool victory over New Zealand.
Briggs’s main regret was that Ireland didn’t do themselves justice in the semi-finals. However, she also conceded that the England team of 2014 – the eventual champions – would have been hard to beat even if Ireland were at their best.
Besides which, that victory over the Black Ferns in 2014 was and will always remain a landmark win for the Irish women’s team. England may be roaring hot favourites to reclaim the World Cup this year, most likely in a third successive decider against New Zealand, but the Black Ferns are the six-time winners and reigning champions and are, well, New Zealand. They have a certain cache in rugby like no other team.
It’s why that Ireland win in 2014 sent tremors through the sport generally and in Ireland especially. How much did that win contribute towards Ireland’s second Six Nations championship in three years in 2015 and even, perhaps, the breakthrough victory of the Ireland men’s team over the All Blacks in 2016?
It remains the only pool defeat ever suffered by the Black Ferns at a World Cup. Granted, it will also add to their motivation next Sunday, especially in tandem with Ireland’s 29-27 win over them in the WXV1 last September in Vancouver. Ireland have won two of the three matches between the two teams in history. New Zealand’s win in the only other clash of the nations came in November, 2016, by 38-8 in the UCD Bowl.
Ruahei Demant carefully and deliberately maintained her side had not been thinking ahead to the Ireland game in the wake of their 62-19 win over Japan on Sunday. But it sounded like the articulate Black Ferns outhalf and co-captain doth protest too much, especially given her reference to the “rivalry” with Ireland.
The Black Ferns look a different proposition in this tournament and are overwhelming favourites to win this match. They have unearthed some gems, including 18-year-old Braxton Sorensen-McGee, who scored three tries, had two assists and kicked four conversions in Sunday’s player-of-the-match performance. She is vying with Renee Holmes for the starting fullback role. Another unearthed diamond is the multipurpose, multi-skilled 21-year-old flanker Jorja Miller. Allan Bunting and his assistants have some decisions to make this week.
Ditto Bemand and co. If opting to put their best foot forward then, for example, the team seems to hum better with Aoibheann Reilly at scrumhalf and with Brittany Hogan on the pitch. Given the sounds from the camp regarding Aoife Wafer are positive, then this looks like an ideal opportunity to reinstate the 2025 Six Nations Player of the Tournament from the bench ahead of the quarter-final. Significantly, too, Sunday’s Pool C finale at the Amex Stadium in Brighton is a 31,000-plus sell-out.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Eve Higgins told RTÉ last Sunday. “I think it was sold out before the World Cup even started and any person that we met during our open sessions before the World Cup were all telling us they were going to Brighton.
“So, there’s excitement around this game. It’s something to look forward to. These are big World Cup games and the fact that it’s a sell-out, [it] is going to be huge to play in front of a crowd so big. It’s definitely exciting.”
In some ways, choosing at least the bulk of their frontline players could be considered a gamble not worth taking. But the scale of the opponents, combined with the profile of this competition and this fixture, demands that Ireland try to put their best foot forward.
