Call for ‘comprehensive plan’ to fix years of neglect of women’s rugby

New Zealand Rugby still has work to do to put women’s rugby “front and centre” despite its smart appointment of Wayne Smith as head Black Ferns coach, an advocate says.

New Black Ferns head coach Wayne Smith.
Photo: Photosport

Smith, a former All Blacks coach, will be assisted by Wesley Clarke and Whitney Hansen as well as scrum coach Mike Cron and another former All Blacks coach Sir Graham Henry, who will play a support role.

The appointments were announced yesterday, days after the surprise resignation of Glenn Moore in the wake of a highly critical report into the culture within the Black Ferns’ camp.

The report was sparked by hooker Te Kura Ngata-Aerengamate’s comments that she had suffered a “mental breakdown” on a tour to the Northern Hemisphere because of Moore’s alleged critical comments.

The chairperson of Women in Rugby Aoteraoa, Traci Houpapa, said the appointments are “a smart stopgap measure” but they are also a Band-Aid.

“What this really says is that New Zealand Rugby really needs to step up up in the interim. Fund, resource and support a comprehensive plan to support women’s rugby from schoolgirls to international and they need to do that before the end of the year.”

The Black Ferns are the current world champions, however, Houpapa said with just five months to go before Aotearoa hosts the Women’s World Cup it’s “a tall order” for any coaching, management and playing group to be asked to defend a world title.

They will do as well as they can “but they’re up against it”, she told Morning Report.

“The reality is that years of successive under-resourcing, under-investment and lack of support for women’s rugby is showing now and it’s happening at the worst possible time for New Zealand Rugby and the Black Ferns because we are hosting the world and the world is watching us.”

She said it has been interesting to watch reaction on social media which has mainly focused on some high-level appointments being made “as a Band-Aid” for what’s really going on in rugby.

Traci Houpapa says there there has been years of under-investment of women’s rugby in New Zealand.
Photo: RNZ/Susan Murray

Houpapa said there were several wāhine coaches within Aotearoa who could be appointed to top roles with the Black Ferns, however, this hasn’t happened so far.

She is pushing for NZ Rugby to take the review seriously and show some commitment to putting in place a plan for wāhine rugby to be “front and centre”.

“England’s done it, France has done it as well and we now need to see Aotearoa step up.”

She said the union would need to work with organisations like hers if it was serious about reform.

Smith not keen on culture change

New Black Ferns coach Wayne Smith doesn’t believe a culture change is needed within the camp.

He plans to adopt some initiatives that should make it easier for the players to perform on the field, including initiatives that the All Blacks use to lessen the pressure.

“We’ll put those in place as we go. The girls are positive towards it, I can’t envisage any major issues.”

Asked about how more women coaches can advance to senior roles in the sport, Smith recalled that in his early days as a coach with Canterbury in the late 1980s three coaches who helped him with coaching courses were women players.

“Men’s sport has tended to dominate. I think there’s a wake-up call here and things will move pretty quickly.”

Resources were needed to help them get to the top level and there was no reason they could also not be coaching men.