With one win and maximum points on the board, the Black Ferns’ win over Spain on Monday was a job successfully completed.
The defending World Cup champions outscored their lower-ranked rivals eight tries to one in a 54-8 win, putting the New Zealanders at the top of their pool after the opening round.
It wasn’t the best performance the side are likely to field in this tournament, with several changes meaning some new combinations forming and the side as a whole taking some time to settle into the game.
But overall, assistant coach Steve Jackson said they were pretty happy with the performance as they looked to build on that against No 11-ranked Japan on Monday morning in Exeter.
“To do some of the things we did was pleasing but obviously there is a lot more things we can do with the ball, like looking after the ball for multiple phases and securing the ball. But overall, we were really, really happy,” Jackson said.
Japan are expected to be a step up in competition for the Black Ferns. They are ranked slightly above Spain (13) in the rankings and tested Ireland at times in their opening match of the competition before ultimately losing 42-14.
The sides have only met once before, in a pre-World Cup test at Eden Park in 2022, where the New Zealand side dominated the Japanese for a 95-12 win. Plenty has changed since then, and Jackson said Japan would be a difficult side to play.
“We are feeling pretty confident, but we aren’t taking Japan lightly. We will be going out there to put our best foot forward and put a performance on that we can be proud of, but Japan will be a difficult side to play. There are things in our game that we need to tidy up, which we will work on this week. If we do that really well, we should hopefully get the desired outcome. We are under no illusions; Japan will be tough.
“In the Spanish game, they came out with a lot of passion in the first 20 minutes, and they continued that throughout the 80 minutes. Their defensive line was getting up off the line and putting pressure on. Japan won’t be any different; they will go for 80 minutes.”
While in the opening-round game plenty of fresh faces were allowed to stake their claim for more involvement later in the competition, Jackson hinted more changes could come for this weekend, and they looked to give everyone an opportunity.
“We just need to make sure we’re putting out the team we think can go out there and do a job against Japan.”
For fans and pundits, the expectation is that the Black Ferns will put Japan to the sword as they ramp up toward the knockout stages. A win over Japan would confirm the Black Ferns’ place in the quarter-finals, with their remaining pool game likely to sort the seedings.
One-sided results were the story of the opening round, with the tournament increasing from 12 to 16 teams this time around. Across the eight matches played, the shortest margin of victory was 24 points – France’s 24-0 win over Italy. The average winning margin was about 48 points.
“This is a different World Cup, and teams have been performing really well,” Jackson said.
“If we go back to last year, we were beaten by Ireland, Canada and England, so they’re candidates, with England probably being the form team this year coming into this World Cup. We also want to write our own history, and again, we are just taking it game by game, not thinking anything further than Japan this week.”
Competition director Yvonne Nolan, a former hooker for Ireland, made note of that in a briefing this week, but said these were important steps in the development of emerging rugby nations.
“If you like free-flowing rugby and you like to see tries, you’re seeing it. If you like an arm wrestle, it will come. These matches are going to get tighter and tighter as we get through the pools and into the knockouts. Part of this is about the trajectory of this game. Different teams are at different stages of their development, but they all deserve to be here,” Nolan said.
“I, certainly, as a player, have been on the receiving end of some very one-sided results; in 2006, I was beaten by France 43-0. Today, Ireland come into this competition ranked fifth, just behind France, so it’s part of the growth, part of the development. If we all get behind these teams, that performance gap will close. But certainly I would say watch and wait, the arm wrestles will come.”
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.