If New Zealand and England are again to be on a Women’s World Cup final collision course then this festival weekend of rugby in Brighton would have gone a long way towards illustrating why. The 60,000 or so who packed out the Amex Stadium across two days where the sun shined on women’s rugby would not have witnessed either the defending champions or the tournament favourites at anywhere near their brilliant best – but just as the Red Roses had done against Australia a day prior, New Zealand’s Black Ferns showed the defensive strength and sparkling individual touches of a champion side.
Last September, Ireland had shocked the rugby world with a remarkable upset of the world champions in Vancouver, a 29-27 WXV1 win that had threatened to shift the axis of power. But with the stakes raised by a World Cup stage, the Black Ferns lifted their game, turning away the incessant Irish bashing on their door to keep their most recent conquerors pointless entirely. There is a reason that the women in black have won six of the nine tournaments to date – come the bright lights of the big dance, they tend to get it right, with new stars like hat-trick scorer Braxton Sorensen-McGee seemingly always ready on the talent conveyor belt.
