Black Ferns v South Africa: The ‘rark-up’ that sparked the Black Ferns into the World Cup semifinals

It’s the old sporting cliche when a side comes out firing in the second half that the coach must have delivered something special in their halftime speech.

After being fired up by coach Allan Bunting, the Black Ferns looked a completely different team from the kickoff of the second half in their Rugby World Cup quarter-final win over South Africa, scoring three tries in the seven minutes after the break.

They scored three more in the second half to win 46-17 to set up a semifinal clash with Canada.

Speaking in a televised interview after the game, player-of-the-match Kaipo Olsen-Baker said the half-time discussion focussed on “AFD”, an acronym meaning “all f***ing day”.

Many would have expected the defending champions to hit the ground running from the kickoff in Exeter, but Sky TV commentator and former Black Ferns skipper Les Elder described them as “possums in headlights” as they let the South African pack roll straight through them throughout the first half.

New Zealand went into the break locked up at 10-10, having made a staggering 143 tackles to just 16 by the Springboks women, who enjoyed 81% of the first half possession. The few times New Zealand did have the ball, they didn’t hold it for long with several errors leading to turnovers.

But from the second-half kickoff, Stacey Waaka leapt high to win the ball and a few seconds later, Renee Holmes gave the Black Ferns the lead again.

Black Ferns winger Braxton Sorensen-McGee scores against South Africa. Photo / SmartFrame

Three minutes after that, they went 70m, spreading the ball brilliantly through several hands before Braxton Sorensen-McGee finished off the team try.

Player-of-the-match Kaipo Olsen-Baker then scored on the back of another breakaway, set up by a great kick into space by Maia Joseph and some more strong running by Sorensen-McGee.

Suddenly, South Africa were standing under the posts trailing 25-10 – all their hard work in the opening 40 minutes had evaporated in the blink of an eye.

“We got a bit of a rark-up in the sheds, especially us backs, our accuracy wasn’t good enough and it wasn’t the standards that this jersey demands,” Black Ferns No 10 Ruahei Demant said after the win.

“We knew that we were going into the wind and the opportunity to play a high-possession game, which a lot of us love, was the message given to us from our coaches and I’m really proud of the way we took that message and enforced it in that second 40.”

The Black Ferns won’t have the comfort of starting slowly against a Canadian side that cruised to a 46-5 win over Australia.

The world No 2-ranked Canadians beat the Black Ferns for the first time last May and the two sides drew their last encounter 27-27 in Christchurch earlier this year.

The Black Ferns will be left with a few concerns beside the poor start to the quarter-final. Holmes missed the first five conversions while tTheresa Setefano failed a head injury assessment which could rule her out of the semifinal.