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Black Ferns thrash Scotland to secure top seed at World Cup
By AAP
New Zealand have secured top seeding for the Women's Rugby World Cup quarter-finals with an emphatic bonus-point 57-0 win over Scotland in Whangarei.
The Black Ferns already had sealed a last-eight spot with earlier group wins over Australia and Wales and made themselves the top-ranked team in the playoffs with Saturday's win by nine tries to nil.
New Zealand set out to play high octane rugby from the start and produced their best performance of the tournament by far, an almost flawless display of 15-woman rugby. Though fielding a line-up with several changes from the match against Wales, they clicked from the outset and proved too much for the Scotland defence who faced wave after wave of attacks.
The host nation had their first try in less than two minutes and added three more to lead 24-0 after only 18. Veteran winger Renee Wickliffe, playing at her fourth World Cup, had a double before the break including a brilliant solo try in which she swerved around the Scotland fullback.
By halftime, the Kiwis had carried for almost 600 meters and Scotland for fewer than 30. While their backplay shone, New Zealand also fielded a much-improved scrum ahead of the playoffs.
The Black Ferns took 13 minutes to score the first try of the second half and when they did, through Maia Roos, they passed 50 points for the second time in the group stage. Fullback Renee Holmes made the game symmetrical with the last try after scoring the first.
In the final game of the day, France will take on Fiji in Group C, currently led by the unbeaten England after two matches.
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Latest Comments
The boy needs to bulk up if wants to play 10 or 11 to handle those hits, otherwise he could always make a brilliant reserve for the wings if he stays away from the stretcher.
Go to commentsIn another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.
First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.
They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.
Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.
Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.
That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup
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