The busiest part of the Black Ferns year starts on Friday afternoon at a suburban sports ground in Upper Hutt, in front of a crowd that will not pay anything to get through the gate.
New Zealand Rugby has put the national side up against the Black Ferns XV, its own development team, at Maidstone Sports Park with a 3.30pm kick off. Entry is free, and for anyone who cannot get to the Hutt Valley the match will be streamed for nothing on blackferns.com and the Black Ferns YouTube channel. Every other fixture the Black Ferns play this year sits behind a Sky Sport subscription, so this is the one afternoon of the season where watching the world’s third ranked side costs a fan nothing at all.
It is not a test, and no caps are on offer. What it is, in the words of the Black Ferns XV coaching staff, is a full dress rehearsal for the players who are one selection away from the real thing. Head coach Blair Baxter named a squad of 25 that assembled on Sunday and has trained through the week on a normal test build up. Baxter said the fixture was a great opportunity for the players to experience what would look and feel like a test week, and described the group as a strong squad with a balance of talent and potential and a shared ambition of representing the Black Ferns.
Five of the players Baxter picked have already worn the black jersey. Angel Mulu, Natalie Delamere, Tafito Lafaele, Ariana Bayler and Grace Brooker are all capped. Two more, Taufa Bason and Sam Taylor, have been in wider Black Ferns squads without playing a test yet. Nine of the 25 have only just finished their first season of Sky Super Rugby Aupiki, which gives some sense of how quickly the pathway is moving. Kaea Nepia is out with a leg injury and Fiaali’i Solomona is unavailable with a shoulder problem.
Baxter is coaching alongside three former Black Ferns in Kelly Brazier, Carla Hohepa and Charmaine McMenamin, which means the players spending Friday afternoon trying to make life difficult for the national side are being coached by women who used to be in it.
On the other side of the halfway line, head coach Whitney Hansen has named 31 players for the rest of the year, with nine changes from the group that played the Pacific Four Series in April and May. Five of them are uncapped. Loosehead prop Ngano Tavake, lock Amarante Sititi, loose forward Elinor-Plum King and outside backs Maia Davis and Shyrah Tuliau-Tua’a have all been called up off the back of their Aupiki form. Prop Santo Taumata is back for the first time since the 2022 World Cup winning squad, and centre Alena Saili returns for the first time since 2018.
Hansen said the squad had an exciting blend of experience and emerging talent, and that finding the right balance was a key part of the selection process. She is assisted by Tony Christie, Riki Flutey and Simon Kneebone.
Hansen’s first season in charge has gone about as well as a first season can. The Black Ferns won all three of their Pacific Four tests, starting with a 48 to 15 win over the United States in Sacramento in which winger Mererangi Paul scored a hat trick, and finishing with a 40 to 5 win over the Wallaroos on the Sunshine Coast that secured both the Pacific Four title and the Laurie O’Reilly Trophy. It was the first clean sweep of the series since 2023.
That record matters because of what came before it. The Black Ferns went into the 2025 World Cup in England as defending champions and lost their semi final to Canada 34 to 19, the heaviest defeat New Zealand has suffered at a men’s or women’s World Cup. They recovered to beat France 42 to 26 in the bronze final, but third place was not the result the country had got used to.
What follows Friday is a schedule that would test any side. The O’Reilly Cup match against Australia is at Go Media Stadium in Auckland on Saturday 22 August. The squad then leaves the country on 28 August, playing South Africa at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on 5 September before three straight weeks of the WXV Global Series away from home, against France in Lyon on 12 September, Scotland in Edinburgh on 19 September and England in London on 26 September. They fly home on 1 October and finish the year with three more tests, in Hamilton on 17 October, Whangārei on 24 October and Christchurch on 31 October. New Zealand Rugby’s published schedule lists France as the opponent for all three home matches.
Both coaches have the same thing circled further out. In September 2027 the Howden British and Irish Lions Women’s Series comes to New Zealand for the first time, with matches in Whangārei, Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch. The Lions will play three tests against the Black Ferns as well as one game against an Invitational XV and, importantly for the players running out at Maidstone Park on Friday, one against the Black Ferns XV in Whangārei on 4 September 2027.
That is the quiet significance of a free game at a club ground on a Friday afternoon in August. The development side is not there simply to give the test team a hit out. It has a Lions fixture of its own coming, and 25 players spent this week finding out how close they are to being picked for either jersey.
Are you heading along to Maidstone Park on Friday, or watching the stream? Tell us in the comments below.
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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