I tested my idea at home yesterday and it, pretty much, got the thumbs down. Which surprised me, actually.
“Why would the Black Ferns want to be associated with the All Blacks?” is how I would summarise the response.
And, yes, give me any game the New Zealand women have played during this World Cup tournament over any All Blacks game in recent memory. This morning’s game against Scotland is a case in point.
How refreshing was it on Saturday night - and throughout the World Cup tournament - to see the women passing the ball around the back row when it seems all the All Blacks can do is kick it into touch time and time and time again.
It just highlights, doesn’t it, how boring they’ve become. So I see what my focus group yesterday was getting at, asking why the women would want to be lumped in with the All Blacks.
When I was watching that game on Saturday night, I remembered how the All Blacks used to play like the Black Ferns. Taking all sorts of risks.
Carlos Spencer, for example, almost throwing the ball away behind him - hoping there was someone there to catch it. And most times, there was. The All Blacks are nothing like that these days.
Nevertheless, rugby honchos still bang on about the All Blacks being the number one rugby brand in the world, don’t they?
Which might have stacked up a few years back when the All Blacks were genuinely exciting to watch. And when they pretty much smashed any team that took them on. I remember watching them play Scotland at Carisbrook in Dunedin back in the 90s, and the scoreline getting so ridiculously in favour of the All Blacks that I just wanted them to let Scotland get a few points on the board.
But they’re not exciting anymore. And they are certainly not dominant. They’re just boring to watch - and, at best, they scrape through games that - not all that long ago - they would’ve won convincingly.
And not only do I think that the women’s team deserve to be part of the All Blacks brand, I think they could actually be its saviour.
Because they’re the ones on top of the rugby world at the moment - unlike their male counterparts.
So this isn’t just about recognising the women. It’s about utilising their magic to bring some much-needed shine back to the All Blacks brand. Supposedly, the greatest rugby brand in the world.
And, surely, if it’s good enough to have the Sevens team known as the All Blacks and the Maori team known as the All Blacks - then it’s more than good enough to have the women’s team known as the All Blacks too.
As I’ve said to my kids time and time again, women’s sport is the future - particularly when it comes to attracting sponsorship money.
And I can see a day coming when the women’s team will be the golden ticket for New Zealand Rugby, as corporate sponsors fall over themselves to support women’s sport.
That is the future. Which is why I’m convinced that, if New Zealand Rugby wants to make the most of that spectacular win on Saturday night, it needs to ditch the Black Ferns brand and make the women’s team part of the All Blacks stable.
The Men’s All Blacks. The Maori All Blacks. The Sevens All Blacks. And the Women’s All Blacks.
But we can’t stop at a name-change. New Zealand Rugby also needs to start pouring a lot more money into women’s rugby. Investing in the national women’s team AND investing in girls’ rugby too. Because how many times do we get girls playing ripper rugby but then, as they get older, they find there are issues getting coaches for girls’ rugby and they get disillusioned and move on to other sports.
So I think New Zealand Rugby needs to pay a lot more than just lip service to women’s rugby. And, for me, that would be changing the Black Ferns name to the Women’s All Blacks. And ring-fencing funding specifically for girls’ and women’s rugby.
Both of those things make perfect sense. Well, they do to me.
