From being 'invisible' a decade ago, women's rugby is finally on a roll, Auckland University professor Toni Bruce finds in her research into what Rugby World Cups mean to Kiwis.
Like many Kiwis, I've been immersed in the women's Rugby World Cup for the past few weeks. I was among the lucky 34,000-plus spectators to experience the gripping emotional vortex that was the Black Ferns opening match at Eden Park. The intensity and fan reactions felt the same as an All Blacks game I attended when New Zealand hosted the 2011 men's Rugby World Cup.
I also spent a sunny afternoon in Whangārei last weekend, soaking up the atmosphere, and I've been watching most other games on TV as part of my ongoing research into the meaning of Rugby World Cups to New Zealanders.
My experiences show how far the women's game has come in just 10 years.
What's struck me is how much fans at live events know about the game, team rankings, and team and individual styles of play, and their overwhelmingly positive evaluation of the women's game. They rise to their feet to roar their pleasure at runaway tries. Ooohs and aahs escape almost involuntarily at big hits, pinpoint passes or adventurous play.
And everywhere, fans twirl poi. Whether they received them free, brought them from home or created their own in stadium poi-making spaces, crowds have fully embraced this uniquely feminine and Māori way of showing support.
Some fans have waxed lyrical about the exciting open style of the women's game. Several attributed their pleasure to the fact that the women "play the game, not the ref".
Black Ferns captain Ruahei Demant in action against Wales. Photo / Photosport
It's not uncommon to hear fans say the women's game is now better than men's rugby. This view often comes from older men with decades of rugby involvement. One explained that the women "are a lot more technical than the blokes. They execute things better than we do. It's more clinical. A lot of them have flair and the big hits - they do some big hits."
His comment that "I wouldn't have said that 10 years ago" shows how rapidly women's sport can develop if it has regular competitions, visibility through televised games and high levels of technical, organisational and financial support.
I agree with him things have changed significantly in the last decade. When I attended a 2013 international test between the Black Ferns and England - then ranked No.1 and No.2 in the world - the Eden Park crowd was minimal, advertising was non-existent, and the women played as a pre-game to a men's Super Rugby match. In fact, women's rugby was so invisible that the women's teams didn't even appear on the ticket.
That isn't the case today. The Black Ferns galvanized the crowd with an electrifying haka to open their World Cup campaign. The power of this moment reflects the actions of previous generations of players, who entwined femaleness and te ao Māori to develop haka and protocols that represent women.
The Black Ferns perform the haka. Photo / Photosport
As I read about, watch the event live and online, and talk with fans, I can't help but wonder what the Black Ferns' female rugby forebears would make of this moment.
I think they'd be proud, and more than a little envious, that over 34,000 people turned out to support a women's rugby match. After all, our earliest pioneers never even got to take the field. Their desires were so far outside society's expectations, their arguments that rugby was suitable for 'girls' fell on deaf ears.
I imagine their excitement at hearing fans today knowledgably discuss women's team strategy and skills, express strong and informed opinions on who will win, and plan their weekends around watching as many games as possible.
I wonder how they would have responded to an older man who played and coached rugby for over 40 years, who described his Saturday as watching game one live in the stadium, game two on TV at home while eating dinner, and game three at the pub on the big screen. What a stark contrast to the men of the 1890s who believed women were "constitutionally unfitted" for the sport.
In 1921, the next generation tried to start competitions in both rugby and football, an effort reduced to occasional one-off exhibition matches over the next 20 years, usually to raise money for good causes. There's no doubt these second era women would be celebrating the fact Aotearoa is hosting women's World Cups in both sports in 2022 and 2023.
What impresses me was their persistence, even in the face of negative public opinion. They grasped whatever opportunities were available, even though newspapers published articles that represented their efforts "as a joke" or "a nine-days wonder" that "soon fell through for lack of support."
The next major push in the 1980s led the way for today's Black Ferns. Players persisted in the face of significant challenges.
They played in men's cast-off jerseys, with little or no funding, and had to mobilise as recently as 2010 to save the women's national league - and in 2012, fundraise to save the Otago women's NPC team. Media coverage was non-existent. As recently as 2008, women's rugby received less than one percent of all rugby coverage in two New Zealand newspapers over an entire year.
Toni Bruce is a former rugby player and professor of sociology of sport and sports media at the University of Auckland. Photo / Supplied
New Zealand was not alone in these struggles. When I played for an American university team in the early 1990s, we drove several hours to the opponent's field, changed into our uniforms in our cars, and played two matches on a surface of frozen puddles and ice-stiffened grass.
The few friends who attended resorted to fortifying their coffee with alcohol to beat the chill. There was no post-match meal or celebration. Instead, we piled back into our cars and drove home to shower. Few knew about our efforts and even fewer cared.
Many of these third era women, like former Black Ferns captain Farah Palmer, are now leaders in the sport and must be heartened by rapid changes in the last decade: growing popularity, corporate, television and rugby organisation support, the development of higher levels of competition like Super Rugby Aupiki, the World Sevens Series and Olympic Games competition, alongside a push for more professional opportunities and equality with elite male players.
News coverage has improved, and women's rugby received the third-highest media attention of all Aotearoa women's sports in 2021.
The response to this Rugby World Cup suggests women's rugby has reached a tipping point where it feels impossible for it go backwards. Game crowds represent a wide spectrum of Aotearoa society. Many are men who have spent their lives immersed in rugby and are expanding their horizons to include the women's game.
Even though New Zealand Rugby board member Farah Palmer expressed the fear in 2018 that "there's always a risk that we could be kicked out", from everything I have seen so far, there's a good chance the next decade should see even more exciting growth in the women's game.
• If you want to share your experiences of the Rugby World Cup, Toni Bruce has created an anonymous questionnaire as part of her research – focusing on the Cup's effect on life and interactions with whanau and friends, the importance of rugby to sense of identity, and the media coverage of the event. You can find the questionnaire here.
This story was originally published at Newsroom.co.nz and is republished with permission.
