Next Ferns: New Zealand Rugby’s nationwide search for new female talent

Ruby Tui swings a poi to celebrate winning the Women’s Rugby World Cup final in 2022 at Eden Park. Photo / Photosport

New Zealand Rugby has launched a nationwide search for new rugby talent in a bid to strengthen future Black Ferns and Black Ferns Sevens teams.

The programme, called “Next Ferns”, hopes to unearth talented women and girls aged 16-25 who could play a role in the 2029 Rugby World Cup and 2032 Olympics.

New Zealand Rugby (NZR) women’s high performance pathways manager Kendra Cocksedge told the Herald she hopes the programme will find athletes with more height, speed and talent in specific positions – the ones that currently lack depth.

“We’re always looking for props, we know there’s a shortage of props,” Cocksedge said.

“Then there’s a little amount of depth in that in our halfback position and probably another one’s a fullback.

“But I think the biggest one definitely sits in that prop space and we know that there is a lack of depth across the country, within that.”

Cocksedge, a three-time Rugby World Cup champion, said there could be netballers or footballers across Aotearoa who, when given the opportunity, could excel in rugby.

“We’re not poaching players from other sports or anything.

“We know there’s a lot of talented athletes out there that play other sports, or not playing sports at all and we’re just keen to see them come into an environment and give some testing a go and see if they obviously are keen to get into our high-performance pathway and play rugby in the future.”

Registrations open today for four regional combines taking place next month in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch. Athletes will be physically and technically tested before the top 30 athletes are invited to a national combine in Wellington in June.

The national trial will be attended by coaching staff from the Black Ferns, Black Ferns Sevens, Sky Super Rugby Aupiki and the Farah Palmer Cup.

Current rugby players can register, but those who have played at the provincial union representative level, been involved in a rugby academy or are currently in an NZR high-performance programme will not be eligible.

Black Ferns player Kendra Cocksedge celebrates after her try against Japan at Eden Park in September 2022. Photo / Photosport

Cocksedge said NZR’s launch of the programme is not because there’s any doubt over their current pathway systems from a junior to a Black Fern.

“Obviously rugby is still a fast-growing sport, and we have really good numbers within our junior space, as well as our high school spaces going forward and we have seen major growth within our areas.

“If we can get a few that end up coming into the pathway, and being as successful like it has been in the past, then we would be pretty happy with that.”

The initiative isn’t too dissimilar to a concept NZR launched in 2012 and again in 2017 called “Go For Gold” that exclusively searched for rugby sevens talent.

It was that programme that unearthed talent such as Black Ferns sevens stars Michaela Brake and Portia Woodman-Wickliffe.

The pair attended the inaugural Go for Gold testing days and have gone on to become two of New Zealand’s greatest rugby players. Both are two-time Olympic Gold medallists with the Black Ferns Sevens, while Woodman-Wickliffe has won two Rugby World Cups with the Black Ferns.

Michaela Brake. Photo / action press

“We know that the power of what this has done in the past has been really successful – there’s there’s a real hype in it,“ Cocksedge said.

“There’s certain kind of attributes that we’re looking for in these athletes [that we] know that we’re potentially lacking ... leading into the Olympics and the next Rugby World Cup after this year."

Cocksedge said the lack of competition in this year’s Super Rugby Aupiki competition was not the motivation behind the launch.

“We’ve already got some quality players, we’ve got quality competitions, and we know how awesome Aupiki’s been this year and the quality of the games has obviously been outstanding.

“It’s more trying to think to the future ... and how we can bring [new talent] into the pathway and into the black jersey down the line.

“It’s just seeing - I guess being a little bit innovative – what’s out there.”

Bonnie Jansen is a multimedia journalist in the NZME sports team. She’s a football commentator and co-host of the Football Fever podcast, and was part of the Te Rito cadetship scheme before becoming a fulltime journalist.