Ruby Tui celebrates her try during the Black Ferns' semifinal victory in the Women's Rugby World Cup. Photo / Photosport.nz
EDITORIAL:
However things finish up in the Women’s Rugby World Cup final at Eden Park tonight, the landscape for women’s rugby in this country has likely changed forever – and it’s a change for the better.
The brave and brilliant Black Ferns play the game the way it’s meant to
be played – with muscular vigour, daring wit, and confidence that comes from loving what you do. These are common traits in the great rugby teams our nation – the greatest of all rugby nations – has produced for more than a century.
But the openness of these women is something new – something unseen in many of those other New Zealand rugby teams. These Black Ferns are the rarest of sporting commodities: relateable superstars. The genuine pleasure and gratitude these women demonstrate in front of massive crowds in this breakthrough tournament adds to their charm and makes the crowds love them more.
The leading figures in the men’s game grow up as inheritors of a code of stony-faced silence and are hidden behind barricades of media management and corporate-speak; the unguarded Black Ferns are comfortable sharing their true selves. They speak from the heart, and their bosses don’t stop them.
