The Black Ferns chose to chase a win rather than settle for a draw at Twickenham this morning, and it cost them the match. With the scores locked at 19-all after full time, Amy du Plessis threw a long pass from near New Zealand’s own line and England’s Zoe Harrison picked it off to run in the try that gave the world champions a 26-19 win in London.
It was the last game of the Black Ferns’ northern tour and the first loss for coach Whitney Hansen in eight tests in charge. The Associated Press reported a crowd of 59,871 at the ground, now known as Allianz Stadium, for a match that swung back and forth until the final play.
England started on top. Maddie Feaunati made the charge that set up a try for Claudia Moloney-MacDonald in the 13th minute, according to RugbyPass. New Zealand answered with two tries in quick succession around the 26th and 27th minutes. Du Plessis scored the first after a gap opened in England’s defensive line, and Ayesha Leti-I’iga added the second as the Black Ferns turned the game around.
New Zealand went to the break leading 12-7, RNZ reported, and Leti-I’iga was the one of the most dangerous players on the field. RugbyPass said she kept hitting the inside channels and throwing offloads that troubled the English defence, and she was denied an early try on a technicality inside the first five minutes.
The second half belonged to England for most of the next 30 minutes. Ellie Kildunne scored early to put the home side back in front, and then the Black Ferns lost prop Veisinia Mahutariki-Fakalelu to a yellow card for a high tackle on England’s Marlie Packer. England used the extra player straight away. A dominant scrum set the platform and Jess Breach went over to push the lead out to 19-12.
New Zealand kept coming. With about ten minutes left Mererangi Paul scored, and Braxton Sorensen-McGee’s conversion levelled the match at 19-all. Both sides then spent the closing stages looking for a winning score.
England had the first chance. Harrison lined up a long-range penalty from about 43 metres as the clock reached 80 minutes, but the kick fell well short. That handed the ball back to the Black Ferns with time up, and they had a choice. They could kick it out and accept the draw, or run it and try to win.
They ran. Starting from near their own line, the Black Ferns moved the ball wide, and du Plessis threw the long pass that Harrison read and intercepted. She ran it in, then converted her own try to finish with 11 points.
Hansen made no apology for the call. “We didn’t want to go down as a draw, we knew we were going to fight to the death and I love that she threw that pass,” she told RNZ, singling out du Plessis. She said her side had shown “some amazing moments of rugby” after only a short time together in what she called “this new era”.
“It’s tough always when we don’t capitalise on those moments that are there,” Hansen said. “There were a few we needed to finish that we didn’t, but incredibly proud of our courage.”
Captain Georgia Ponsonby summed it up simply. “It was a hell of a match, it was everything we hoped for and more,” she said.
On the England side, Harrison was buried under her teammates after the intercept. “I nearly suffocated. I was screaming for them to get off me because I still had to go and kick,” she told the BBC, as reported by AP. England captain Megan Jones said her side had ridden some luck. “A little bit of luck in the end but I think you make your own luck. We kept pressing, defence, we were relentless,” she said.
Feaunati was named player of the match. “We put ourselves under a lot of pressure, they put us under a lot of pressure and I think that’s the entertaining game that women’s rugby is at the moment,” she told RugbyPass.
The result matters more to England than a single win usually would. A week earlier the Red Roses had drawn 26-26 with Canada, which ended a 39-test winning streak. Beating New Zealand keeps their unbeaten run going at 40 tests and settles some nerves after that stumble. RugbyPass said coach John Mitchell had asked his players to get back to their process, and they played a controlled game built on defence and kicking rather than running rugby. Their lineout still struggled, losing at least four throws across the two halves.
For the Black Ferns the tour ends with four wins and one loss. They opened with a 52-20 win over South Africa in Johannesburg on 5 September, beat France 28-14 in Lyon a week later, and then thrashed Scotland 66-14 in Edinburgh last weekend. The France, Scotland and England tests were all part of the new WXV Global Series. The side was without experienced first five Ruahei Demant, who was ruled out of the tour with a calf injury before it started.
Hansen’s side will look back on the chances they left out on the field in the first half as much as the final pass. Leading by five at the break and with a strong run of form behind them, the Black Ferns had England under real pressure and could not turn it into more points. The yellow card early in the second half proved just as costly, with England scoring while New Zealand were down to 14.
Still, a seven-point loss to the world champions in front of almost 60,000 people in London, with a new coach and without Demant, is not a bad place to finish a long tour. These two sides have met in some of the biggest games in women’s rugby, and on this showing the gap between them is small. The Black Ferns will have plenty to work on before they next meet England.
Was running the ball on the last play the right call, or should the Black Ferns have taken the draw? Tell us what you think 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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