Black Ferns are gathering momentum and pose the biggest threat to the Red Roses’s hopes of lifting the World Cup
The Black Ferns were slow leaving the pitch at half-time, but very quick coming back on to it once the break was over. With 40 minutes to play, the scores tied 10-10, and a spot in the semi-finals on the line, the Black Ferns’ captain Ruahei Demant pulled her team into a huddle, while the Springboks trotted past them and in to the changing rooms at Sandy Park.
The team talk, according to player-of-the-match Kaipo Olsen-Baker, was only three letters long: “AFD” which, Olsen-Baker just stopped herself from blurting out during a live TV interview afterwards, means “all fucking day”. They scored three tries in the next seven minutes play.
The Red Roses may be the most successful team in any sport, but the question hanging over this past fortnight of the World Cup is whether they are the best in their own sport. They may be in the thick of one of the greatest winning streaks in history, with back-to-back runs of 30 consecutive victories either side of one solitary loss in six years, but, as the Black Ferns players will tell you, there are other ways to measure success than by the number of matches you have won in between the ones that matter most, or the world ranking points you totted up while doing it.
