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'You can feel the electric energy': Hong Kong crowd parties as Blacks Ferns dominate
By Ned Lester
The Black Ferns have wasted no time in making their mark on the Hong Kong Sevens tournament, picking up where they left off in Vancouver with two huge wins to round out day one of the tournament.
The Ferns enjoyed complete control in both of their matches, beating tournament hosts Hong Kong China by 50 before handing out a similar drubbing to Great Britain to finish the opening day with 93 points scored and not a single point against them.
A vibrant atmosphere engulfed the Hong Kong stadium early, much to the enjoyment of the players. Risi Pouri-Lane described the "electric energy" of the tournament as a "party".
"Just being in the tunnel, you can feel the electric energy from the crowd and it's only day one, it's only Friday so there'll be much more to look forward to come tomorrow and Sunday," Pouri Lane told RugbyPass after bagging two tries against Great Britain.
"It's a party, it's a party here in Hong Kong. While we're out on the field it's hard to hear each other but we love it, we love the energy from everyone in the crowd."
Both tries the 22-year-old scored came in the first half, meaning she was dotting the ball down in front of the most energised fans in the building.
"The party is on the south stand," she continued. "You can see it, you can feel it, I mean we're just out here having some fun. It's amazing to be here in Hong Kong."
Pouri-Lane and Black Ferns teammate Shiray Kaka went try for try in the first half, each ending the period with ten points to their name.
"She's always after me, Shiray Kaka! Nah, it's pretty cool when you're both having a good time here in Hong Kong. Can't wait for tomorrow.
"We've been training back home, like all the other teams here, but it's pretty cool to come out on the field and pull out some of the stuff we've been working on."
The Black ferns currently sit comfortably ahead of their peers in pool A, with one match against Canada still to come on Saturday afternoon before playoffs begin.
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Finau is definitely operating on razor thin margins. He hasn’t done anything wrong… yet. But a player going into contact 6 inches lower than he is expecting, without him even knowing, will end in disaster. You can imagine a situation where the pass dies on Edmed and he has to bend down a little lower to catch it at the last second. Finau’s hit would have been catastrophic. The margins are just too fine. He needs to study how PSDT, at 6’7”, manages to drop his tackle height and exert just as much force with close zero danger of taking someone’s head off. Given how poorly NZ has adapted to lower their tackle height, and that this issue which has plagued the ABs for years and played a big part in them not winning the World Cup, I thought NZR and all SR coaches would be prioritising sorting this issue out. If I was Razor I would be on the phone to Clayton MacMillan and Samipeni Finau saying exactly that. Finau is a monster and shaping up to be the closest thing to Kaino since Kaino, but I wouldn’t risk selecting him for the ABs at the moment.
Go to commentsThe surprising stat I saw in the Blues game when showing Sotutu equaling the Blues forwards record was that Akira has not scored a try since 2019. Now my memory is pretty bad when it comes to those sorts of the things, I can remember his AB try though, but anyway I can’t see I can remember his last blues touchdown or any in recent years. Surely that still has to be a bogus stat. Maybe excludes SRA games?
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