At opposite ends of their Black Ferns careers, Kendra Cocksedge and Ruby Tui have a special bond - so it's fitting they had the final word before going into battle with England for the Rugby World Cup title on Saturday. Suzanne McFadden writes.
They are the two big personalities in the Black Ferns: One the yappy little general, controlling play behind the Black Ferns' pack for the last 15 years; the other still an avid student of the game, yet arguably the fan favourite of the Rugby World Cup.
While one bows out of international rugby this Saturday on the code's greatest stage – the Rugby World Cup final – as the most capped Black Fern in history, the other’s career in the 15s game is really just beginning.
One who cranks up Celine Dion, razzing her room-mates on match day mornings; the other who puts her headphones on, deep in rap.
Yet Kendra Cocksedge and Ruby Tui sat alongside each other at a small table in a back room of an Auckland hotel yesterday – in front of more reporters and TV cameras than they’d ever seen ahead of a Black Ferns match, they reckoned – as long-time friends and a two-woman mutual inspiration club.
They threw their heads back at each other’s jokes, listened intently as each one spoke, sometimes gave each other a reassuring pat.
They were the main event at the Black Ferns’ final press conference before meeting the world No.1 rugby side, England, at Eden Park - pushing rugby coaching’s Yoda, Wayne Smith, into the role of curtain-raiser (quite an achievement).
They paid each other the highest compliments throughout their 20 minutes in the media’s glare.
Tui, who only made her Black Ferns debut this year but nevertheless has been a try-scoring star at both wing and fullback in this tournament, recalled an unforgettable moment 12 years ago when Cocksedge instilled belief in her.
In March 2010, netballer Tui joined the University Rugby Football Club in Christchurch – having only ever played a handful of school rugby games – and saw the little halfback Cocksedge, who later that year won her first Rugby World Cup title.
“It was a long time ago, a crispy evening in Christchurch and she had all the gears, she was pretty slick with her skills, she knew all the plays and she was one step ahead of everyone else on the field,” Tui said. “So to be honest, nothing’s changed in that 12 years.
“But she was the first person to whisper in my ear ‘You could be a winger in the Black Ferns one day’. And many people I’ve met said I wouldn’t be. So I’ve got a lot of time for this guy.” Tui patted her on the back.
Cocksedge, about to play her 68th and final test, gave credit to Tui’s incredible work-rate, energy and attitude for keeping her on her toes: “I bounce off that now”.
“I’ll never forget the first time I met a young naïve Rubes from the West Coast. She rocked up to training with all the energy in the world; the same person as you see on the field now is what Rubes was like. Giving 100 percent on the field in everything she does… Being one of the older ones in the team now, I love that energy Rubes brings,” Cocksedge, 34, said.
“I remember our club games down there and you played a few different positions, 12, centre maybe wing, maybe even seven at some stage," she turned to Tui and said. "I just appreciate what she’s done and it’s pretty cool to now be named in a Rugby World Cup final alongside Ruby.”
(The only change to the Black Ferns line-up from last week is Charmaine MacMenamin coming from the "backbone" - the Black Ferns outside the match day team - into No.8 for the injured Liana Mikaele-Tu'u).
They bounced off each other, like a seasoned comedy duo.
“It’s pretty awesome that finally people are falling in love with women’s rugby and the Black Ferns,” Cocksedge said. “To be honest, for me, I didn’t think we’d be able to do that. And then when the [World Cup] opening match came around, we had 34,000 attending. Now that’s up to 42,500 and it’s going to be an incredible evening and we can’t wait for that whole crowd to get in behind us.”
So why did they think New Zealanders had finally fallen in love with the Black Ferns?
“I’m obviously funny,” Tui quipped.
“Nah, it’s cool though right? So we met 2010, just imagine this: Nobody knows who the Black Ferns are; nobody knows what they look like. Nobody follows women’s rugby.
“We’re told ‘You will never be paid’. We’re told ‘We’re not giving you Eden Park for the World Cup; we’re giving you somewhere that holds 5000, because you’re not going to sell it out’. We’re told ‘Women’s rugby doesn’t matter’. And then here we are 12 years later, Eden Park is sold out, bro.
“We’re at home, we’re playing the best team in the world. And I’m sitting here talking to the most media I’ve ever talked to for the Black Ferns. It’s a really, really special moment. I think sometimes Kiwis can be so laidback that we’re laying down, but we finally got up. We’re stoked about it.”
They discussed their different pre-match rituals before defending their world champions title.
Kicking off at 7.30pm isn’t a normal timeslot for the Black Ferns, but Cocksedge will still rise at around 7am on Saturday, have breakfast and relax till lunchtime (“…while Ruby is still asleep”).
“We get this beautiful, amazing night game,” Tui, 30, chipped in, “that’s when I like to come alive, at night. I love sleep, I love food. I love music.”
Kendra Cocksedge is airborne seconds after kicking the ball into touch to end the Black Ferns' 25-24 semifinal win over France last weekend.
Which brought us to Dion, the multi-platinum Canadian singer, who’s 20 years Cocksedge’s senior.
Cocksedge has a certain routine she must go through when packing her bag for the game, and that’s when she likes to belt out Dion ballads. Her three favourites: ‘It’s All Coming Back to Me Now’, ‘The Power of Love’ and ‘My Heart Will Go On’.
“I feel sorry for my roomies, but they know it now. And sometimes if I feel they’re not into it, I’ll put my headphones on and respect that,” the halfback says. “And then I have a playlist build up to Shapeshifter and Eminem… going from one extreme to the other.”
“The Real Slim Shady right here,” Tui popped in again.
“I love Celine, she’s beautiful. But that’s not my game day. I’m a bit more rap, yeah, yeah.”
Tui said she wants Cocksedge to write a book. She was signing stacks of her own autobiography Straight Up at the concierge’s desk before the press conference (it’s still at No.2 in the non-fiction list of New Zealand’s best-selling books).
Cocksedge would have a huge story to tell. The first female player to win the Kel Tremain Memorial Trophy for New Zealand rugby player of the year; the world women’s player of the year in 2015. The kid from the Taranaki village of Ōkato who played her first game of rugby aged four, and was for a long time the only girl in the boys’ team. She thanked her parents, Pete and Marie, for allowing her to do that.
She’s played for 30 years, but Cocksedge admits she’s adapted her game in the last six months with the arrival of Wayne Smith as Black Ferns’ head coach. She’d got to a point in her game as halfback where she was “just passing”. She was famous in last Saturday's gut-busting 25-24 semifinal win over France for her quick taps.
“I probably fell into quite a structured game over the last few years. When Smithy came on, the first thing he said to me was ‘We’re not doing any box kicks’,” she said. “I’ve just been able to express myself more and as a nine, we love to be able to play freely… I absolutely love being able to play the way we are.”
Smith gave praise to “a lovely human being” who gives everything to her team: “She’s very smart and hugely diligent in the way she prepares for a game. Very clever on the field, and can adapt things quickly.”
During the week, Cocksedge and Renee Wickliffe, who’s also retiring after her fourth World Cup, were made life members of the Black Ferns Rugby Club. “She’s quite a special woman who will go down in history,” Smith said.
He also reckoned if he had to write a book and pick his "top 10 athletes”, Tui would be one of them.
“She’s phenomenal,” he said. “I didn’t know where to play her. She was a prop in sevens, she could play flanker, fullback or winger. She learns the game as she goes, she’s a student; she fights with herself, she’s honest with everyone else. She’s an incredible character.”
Tui, with her streak of red hair copied by hundreds of Kiwi girls in the last month, says it wasn't an easy journey to this tournament, but she has no regrets she left a hugely successful sevens career to try to fulfil her dream of winning a World Cup.
Victory on Saturday will be Cocksedge’s third World Cup title, but there’s never been one quite like this. And she feels she's leaving the game in great hands.
“It’s only going to grow and get better in terms of the product that we’re giving out at the moment,” she said. “We’ve got to build on the momentum from this World Cup. After I retire, I go back into my job at NZ Rugby in the participation space, so I get to go and work with every young girl and every young boy who wants to play the game because of this World Cup.”
* New Zealand must win Saturday's Rugby World Cup final by more than 15 points to return to the top of the world rankings; if England win they'll post the highest rating in world rugby rankings history. Canada will leapfrog New Zealand for second spot if they win the bronze play-off from France and the Black Ferns lose.
