Women's Rugby World Cup, weekend one

Given the times, I didn’t watch these matches live, and I didn’t watch them all. When England rack up a record score in all games, I’m not going to spend a couple of hours watching that, sorry Fiji.

• France v SA.
  • The Bok Women are not the force that he Bok men are. The French women are the force that their men are. Next month the men will clash and it will be fascinating. This match, however, only really had one winner, and Les Bleues duly obliged. 40-5 to France. They really never looked troubled.
• England v Fiji
  • England are racking up points (14 tries) and extending their win streak record for fun at the moment. Next week they play the only team that has pushed them in recent years, France. Allez les Bleues. Unlike France who looked serene throughout, Fiji took it to England in the first half, then ran out of puff. England scored 10 tries to 0 in the second period and it ended up 84-19.
• NZ v Australia
  • This was the closest match on paper and on the day. In the first half hour, the Wallaroos lived up to the gold of their shirts and totally dominated, running out to a 17-0 lead. Then the Black Ferns kicked into gear and scored 41 unanswered points and rarely looked threatened. From watching it’s hard to be sure why the change happened but NZ looked nervous and couldn’t keep hold of the ball, Australia capitalised on that. At 17-0 down the “we’ve got to score next or we’ll lose” mindset clicked in and suddenly they played a much simpler game to score a try, confidence spread and boom. Australian commentators will point to the 10 minutes they were down to 13 for two yellow cards. That ignores the fact that the Black Ferns were rampant before that. It almost certainly made a difference to the final score line but not the result.
• Italy v USA
  • In terms of world rankings this should have been close, and I guess 22-10 is a fairly narrow margin. But, judging from the highlights Italy were never really in trouble. USA scored a try and a penalty, and deserve credit for that, but never really looked like creating more. Italy looked a bit out of sorts - it’s the first game in the RWC and it showed - and they’ll be more dangerous in weeks to come.
• Canada v Japan
  • Canada are good. Not yet professional as I understand it, but by far the best of the rest. Five years ago they were third. Japan, on the other hand, really started their women’s rugby alongside the buildup to the men’s RWC in 2019. This was, to coin a phrase, women against girls, at least in terms of their rugby experience. And a score of 41-5, very similar to the French over SA, is a pretty fair reflection of that.
• Wales v Scotland
  • To the neutrals this is the game that was most fun to watch. Certainly the last ten minutes were fun. Unless you’re Scottish. But the previous 70 minutes were error-strewn and pretty poor, from both teams.

This weekend was a roaring success. Big crowds (Eden Park for the Black Ferns obviously the biggest but still big at Whangeri). While it’s easy to point and say there were some blowout scores, the same is true of the men’s RWC. I’ve heard people criticising the standard of the referees, followed by “and so they should have men referring on the pitch.” I’d just point out that if you live in Australia you’re probably still screaming about the decision of a certain French referee who is almost certainly going to next year’s MRWC. If you live in NZ have you forgiven Barnes for that (admittedly atrocious) missed forward pass that knocked the AB out against France all those years ago? The list goes on and on… While there were certainly decisions I disagreed with, the same is true of men. I’ll take the women refs and their mistakes thanks. It matters that we see that women can do all parts of the game.

Looking ahead, Pool A sees Scotland v Australia, a big game where they’re both in a “must win” situation, or the tournament is over. Wales v New Zealand is the other game, and possibly the first real test of the new Black Ferns. Pool B sees USA v Japan, and sadly I can’t see Japan winning although we can hope it’s closer. Much more intriguing will be Italy v Canada to determine who wins this group. The patch of the weekend has two of the favourites facing off - France v England. England have dominated recent meetings, but France is always their closest match (NZ are looking to upset that particular trend of course). Fiji v SA for third place in the pool and pride. The world rankings predict SA but from what I’ve seen Fijiana to beat the Bok Women.