Women’s Rugby World Cup: Why Black Ferns and France have plenty to play for in battle for bronze

It’s been a bittersweet week for the Black Ferns.

On Saturday night (NZ time), the side will run out at Twickenham for a test against France to end their campaign at the Rugby World Cup.

The test is the fixture that few groups want to find themselves in, as the teams ranked third and fourth in the world play for the bronze medal.

The Black Ferns were comfortably beaten 34-19 by world No 2 Canada in their semifinal. They had lost only once previously in a World Cup knockout game: a semifinal against the United States in the inaugural tournament in 1991.

“It’s really important that we reflect on the result and that it hurts. There’s a feeling that you let people down, but we can’t focus on that now,” Black Ferns assistant coach Steve Jackson said of the semifinal loss.

“We let it play up for a day or two, but now we’ve got a job to do. We want to leave this tournament only losing one game, although a very, very important game.

“I suppose the beauty about making a semifinal is that you get another opportunity to play, and I know this group will put in everything they can.”

While the team will be disappointed not to be in a position to defend their World Cup title, the campaign hasn’t been without positives. Among those, outside back Braxton Sorensen-McGee has been among the stars of the tournament, leading the counts for individual try-scoring (9), points (59) and linebreaks, while the team top the tournament count for linebreaks with 10 more than the next best team.

They were, however, made to pay for slow starts and poor discipline. Of the 221 points they have scored in the tournament, 57% were scored in the second half. They conceded the first points of the game against Japan, South Africa and Canada, while they were on the wrong side of the penalty count in all five of their World Cup games. They have conceded 50 penalties, at an average of 10 a game, which is 21 more than they have been awarded.

Although their World Cup hopes have been extinguished, there is still plenty for the Black Ferns to play for against France. Should Allan Bunting’s side lose, they will fall out of the top three in the world rankings for the first time.

Black Ferns halfback Maia Joseph said the French would test them across the park, but the battle for bronze gave her side another opportunity to finish their tournament on a high.

Maia Joseph: "We didn’t execute like we usually do against Canada. So that’s a huge focus this weekend." Photo / Getty Images

“France are really unpredictable and they have players in their team that can spark something out of nothing. So this week there’s been a mix of preparing for the things that they might throw at us, but also focusing on our own game.

“We didn’t execute like we usually do against Canada, so that’s a huge focus this weekend.”

The game kicks off at 11.30pm on Saturday.

Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.