The Black Ferns scored 10 tries at Go Media Stadium in Auckland on Saturday afternoon to beat the Wallaroos 66-19, holding on to the Laurie O’Reilly Cup and stretching a winning run over Australia that now goes back more than three decades.
New Zealand were ahead inside the first three minutes. Fullback Braxton Sorensen-McGee crossed first, and tries to Chryss Viliko, captain Ruahei Demant and Liana Mikaele-Tu’u followed before the break. The ABC reported Australia trailed 26-7 at halftime after winger Desiree Miller got one back for the visitors.
The second half brought no relief. Maia Roos, Ayesha Leti-I’iga, Vici Rose-Green and Maia Joseph all scored, and the last two tries went to players in their first test for New Zealand, winger Shyrah Tuliau-Tua’a and lock Amarante Sititi. Sorensen-McGee finished with 16 points from her try and her work off the kicking tee. Miller scored a second for Australia and the Wallaroos added a third late on, but the margin only grew.
RNZ reported the win took the Black Ferns to 30 wins from 30 tests against Australia since the two sides first met in 1994. No New Zealand women’s side has ever lost to the Wallaroos. New Zealand also won the first test of this year’s series in April, 40-5 on the Sunshine Coast.
For Australia the afternoon carried more weight than the scoreboard suggests. It was the 100th test in Wallaroos history, a milestone the side reached 32 years after their first international. Captain Siokapesi Palu Sekona was blunt about where the game was lost. “New Zealand started off really fast, so we were on the back foot. But you could see towards the end that we can get back, it’s just a matter of starting well,” she told the ABC.
Two Australians made their test debuts. One was Maddison Levi, Australia’s all time leading try scorer in sevens, who came off the bench for the last half hour and immediately went hunting for turnovers. “When I got out there I just wanted to be able to lift the energy and inject myself how I could,” she told RugbyPass. “Getting that ball back and being able to regain possession is something that was super crucial in that moment to try and shift the momentum.”
The other debutant has a New Zealand story behind her. Pia Tapsell played six tests for the Black Ferns in 2019 and 2020, moved to Australia to join the Western Force and has now become eligible to play for the country of her birth. Running on for the Wallaroos made her the first woman to play test rugby for both New Zealand and Australia. “Two massive occasions for our debutants in Pia Tapsell and Maddison Levi. Pia’s last Test match was playing for the Black Ferns,” Australia’s director of women’s high performance Tim Walsh said when the side was named.
New Zealand handed out three debuts of their own. Loose forward Elinor-Plum King started, and Sititi and Tuliau-Tua’a came off the bench and both scored. All three were named in the 31 player squad that head coach Whitney Hansen picked earlier this month for the rest of the year, a group that included five uncapped players. “This squad has an exciting blend of experience and emerging talent,” Hansen said when the squad was announced on 9 August.
Hansen had flagged what she wanted from the newcomers before kick off, describing King as “incredibly agile and relentless through the middle” and calling Sititi “a phenomenal talent with the versatility to play both lock and loose forward” when she named the team. King finished the game with 16 defensive stops and two turnovers won, according to RugbyPass, which also singled out number eight Kaipo Olsen-Baker for 16 carries and outside centre Amy du Plessis for 79 metres with ball in hand.
This was Hansen’s first season in charge after taking over from Allan Bunting, and the Auckland test closes the home part of a long year. The Black Ferns now head offshore. They play South Africa at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on 5 September as part of the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry tour, then move to Europe for three matches in the WXV Global Series, against France in Lyon on 12 September, Scotland in Edinburgh on 19 September and England at Twickenham on 26 September.
That last fixture is the one the season will be measured against. England have been the benchmark side in the women’s game for several years, and the Black Ferns did not reach the final at last year’s World Cup. Beating an Australian team that has never beaten New Zealand tells Hansen something about her depth and her debutants, but it does not answer the harder question. A 66 point afternoon in Auckland is a good place to start looking for the answer, and the Black Ferns have five weeks to find it.
What did you make of the Black Ferns’ performance, and can this side trouble England at Twickenham next month? Leave a comment below and tell us what you think.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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