Portia Woodman was nearly impossible to stop as she scored eight tries against Hong Kong at the Women's Rugby World Cup. Photo / Getty Images
Portia Woodman was nearly impossible to stop as she scored eight tries against Hong Kong at the Women's Rugby World Cup. Photo / Getty Images
Kaikohe's Portia Woodman scored a scarcely believable eight tries as the Black Ferns romped to a 121-0 drubbing of Hong Kong at the Women's Rugby World Cup.
The Black Ferns went into the match relatively blind as Hong Kong haven't played a lot of top-flight women's rugby, but Woodman saidthey stuck to their guns against a spirited side.
"We had a bit of footage of their games against Canada and Japan but to be honest we didn't know much about them," she said.
"The coaches just wanted us to stick to our game plan and see how we'd go from there.
"The score does reflect our work but for Hong Kong it doesn't reflect what they were doing. They worked hard on defence and attack and they just kept going right up to the 80th minute.
"Unfortunately it doesn't reflect how hard they were working."
Northland had four players out on the field during the stunning victory: Woodman, first five Victoria Subritzky-Nafatali, lock Charmaine Smith and prop Aleisha Nelson.
Woodman and Subritzky-Nafatali were standouts, while Smith and Nelson performed their roles well.
Woodman was the undisputed star of the show as the Black Ferns opened their account just 52 seconds into the contest. Carla Hohepa crossed over on her right edge.
A perfectly placed crossfield chip from Subritzky-Nafatali put Woodman in for her first. She could have had a second shortly afterwards but desperate defence from the Hong Kong halfback dislodged the ball in the in-goal.
Victoria Subritzky-Nafatali had a top game running the cutter from first five. Photo / Getty Images
Woodman didn't have to wait long to score her second before midfielders Chelsea Alley and Theresa Fitzpatrick added five-pointers.
Fitzpatrick's try came courtesy of the Northland connection again as Subritzky-Nafatali put another chip on for Woodman who found the centre on her inside.
New Zealand scored twice more before the halftime break, giving them a 57-0 buffer.
The Black Ferns started the second stanza quicker than the first as prop Sosoli Talawadua scored after 29 seconds.
Woodman completed her hattrick and added a fourth before the hour mark before exploding in the final 10 minutes.
The Olympic silver medalist scored possibly the try of the tournament as she ran 60m, standing up three would-be defenders.
She added another three tries after that to take her tally to eight for the afternoon to go along with 350 running metres, helping New Zealand chalk up a century for the third time at World Cups.
Woodman finished just one try short of Vanessa Coote's Black Ferns record of nine tries against France in 1996.
The winger said the team has come out of the match injury-free in a game which tested not their defence, but their ability to stay on task in terms of playing their game.
"We haven't suffered any injuries, touch wood. We'll see how we pull up but overall we're pretty good," she said.
"It is hard [to stick to the game plan in a blowout win]. You try not to drop your level of play but we wanted to focus on executing our game plan because we won't be able to use one-off runners against the better sides."
With qualification for the quarter-finals all but wrapped up, the Black Ferns now turn their focus towards their final pool match against world number three Canada.
Woodman said Canada would be no easy-beats.
"Canada is a really physical team. We are treating the match as a quarter-final," she said.
"They're physical, they're fit, they're strong and they'll come out firing but if we focus on our game plan and stick to what we know, we'll hold them off."
