When the Black Ferns meet Wales in their World Cup quarter-final, Whitney Hansen wants to see them remedy the situation.
When the sides met in the second round of pool play, the Black Ferns ran away with a 44-point win. However, the Welsh dominated the set piece during the contestand both of their tries were set up from lineout drives.
It was an area of concern for the Black Ferns, but one they drastically improved on in last weekend's win over Scotland.
So, while many may be disappointed to see the knockout draw led to a rematch first up for the Black Ferns in Whangārei on Saturday night, forwards coach Hansen said it provided her side the chance to prove a point.
"What we saw from them last time won't be anything compared to what we see this week. I think they're going to be even hungrier than they were then," Hansen said.
"They've had an opportunity to get one over us at set piece time and I think they'll probably look to try and do that again, whereas we want to remedy that, so I think that will be an interesting battle."
Black Ferns captain Ruahei Demant looks on during a scrum. Photo / Photosport
While the Black Ferns have run something of a rotation policy throughout their squad through pool play, with the knockout stages looming the coaching staff will have a good idea of how they want their side to line up on Saturday night.
Several players in the pack put their hands up against Scotland last weekend, with a much-improved set piece and a noticeable lift in physicality in the match. Among them, props Amy Rule and Pip Love, as well as lock Maiakawanakaulani Roos and loose forward Liana Mikaele-Tu'u were praised by coach Wayne Smith for leading the lift in intensity. Of those four, only Roos featured in the previous match against Wales – with the side making five changes to the starting pack leading into the Scotland game.
Against Scotland, the Black Ferns went about their work early, running out to a 45-0 lead at the break. Making several changes in the second half, their performance fell off a bit as their discipline began to be an issue again.
It was an impressive outing overall, however, Hansen said there was still plenty in the performance to shore up for the business end of the tournament.
"There's definitely places we can be better with our defence and that showed in the second half. We were probably a little bit passive and, at times, our discipline wasn't good enough again. That really let us down so we know that's got to be better," Hansen said.
"We're excited about the set piece, but there's more in there to give, and it's always disappointing when you know the challenge is to not be complacent in that second half. We talked about that at halftime, and unfortunately, we did come out and were that, so we've got to be better at that as well."
The Black Ferns celebrate Maiakawanakaulani Roos' try against Scotland. Photo / Photosport
With complacency and issues with discipline not necessarily being areas of the game that can be worked out on the training park, Hansen said it fell to the players to be smart with how they go about their business.
"There's a big piece in there around leadership, and there's a piece around just being a bit more intelligent with the way we play," Hansen said.
"The girls know what to do. A lot of those times we're calling what those options are, but we need people to be listening and to act on that a wee bit better."
The Black Ferns match against Wales will be one of two rematches of pool games in the quarter-finals. Canada and the United States, who played last weekend, will meet again as the second and seventh seeds respectively. In the other matches, England (3) will take on Australia (6), while France (4) will meet Italy (5).
