Can three into two go?

The Black Ferns wing conundrum.  By Benji Crossley

The Black Ferns have a problem. They’ll say it’s a good one, but it’s a problem none the less. How do you get Portia Woodman, Ruby Tui and Ayesha Leti-I’iga into the same team? And do you have to?

Wayne Smith has been clear, he and his coaching group have picked a squad designed to run and run fast. They’re not going to beat England and France by playing them at their game, they will beat them by playing our game. For that to be successful, they need their wingers to be successful.

Portia Woodman is Portia Woodman, she needs no introduction. She has won every major accolade available to a NZ women’s rugby player. At the 2017 World Cup in Ireland she scored 13 tries. In two tests back for the Black Ferns in 2022 she has scored nine tries. If you want to score tries, Portia Woodman will score them. But 2022 Portia Woodman is not 2017 Portia Woodman. Injury and time has seen to that.

Ruby Tui is the face of this tournament. In the last eighteen months her force of personality off the pitch and success on it has made her the highest profile women’s player in New Zealand. She committed to the Black Ferns XV program from the start in 2022 and in doing so cost herself a shot at Commonwealth Games gold and a Sevens World Cup. She is fast, strong and tenacious. She can defend and has a developing kicking game. Her performance against Australia in the opener was enough to earn her the player of the match award. Her second try was perhaps the Black Ferns best of the day and showed the blueprint for how they want to play.

Ayesha Leti-I’iga is the lowest profile and youngest of the three. Her record since her Black Ferns debut is incredibly impressive: nine tries in 17 tests to go alongside 56 tries in 44 games for Wellington. She was the Black Ferns best in the recent Pac Four series. She offers something unique, a combination of speed, strength and balance that can bring 2003 Rupeni Caucaunibuca to mind. Her ability to snipe around Kendra Cocksedge was on display in the Pac Four and gives the Black Ferns a unique attacking weapon.

Smith has two options: pick two of them and find a spot for one on the bench or try and manufacture a way to get all three of them on the park.

Option One – pick two of them…. All three players offer something different, they can complement each other in any kind of combination.

Tui is perhaps the best defender of the three and is effective over the ball given her background as a forward in Sevens. She’s a one-woman hype machine and if you’re in a huddle, ten points down with 20 minutes to go in a World Cup final, I imagine she’d be able to lift the energy levels. She’s never played England or France so doesn’t carry the baggage of the 2021 end of year tour. For me, she gets one of the spots.

Leti-I’iga is the Black Ferns joker in the pack. She is unique and at her best almost impossible to stop. She can offer something that neither Tui nor Woodman can. The Black Ferns have talked a lot about not dying with the ball and keeping it alive wherever possible, the idea of Leti-I’iga sniffing around any of the Black Ferns big ball carriers waiting for offloads or sniping off a Cocksedge pass close to the ruck against big and slow defenders is a mouth watering prospect.

Woodman is a finisher, perhaps the best in rugby at the moment. But she’s conditioned to hug the touchline and run around the outside of the last defender, something that the space in the Sevens game affords. A couple of times during the World Cup opener, an option to take the inside pass from a teammate drifting wide was missed. It’s arguable that she could have made Stacey Fluhler’s job easier by cutting back inside to wrong foot the defence for the try that was eventually scored because Fluhler threw the miracle offload. She doesn’t kick and isn’t as good of a defender as Tui.

It almost feels criminal to write this, but if I had to only pick two it would be Tui and Leti-I’iga with Woodman in the 23 jersey on the bench.

Option two – find a way to get them all on the park.

New Zealand teams have an unfortunate history of trying to fit round pegs in square holes at RWC’s. All in the name of getting their best players on the park. But when you’re entire game plan is based around the x-factor you possess, it seems really quite foolish to leave any of your biggest weapons on the bench. So how do you do it?

As Alice Soper pointed out, Portia Woodman played much of the 2020 Farah Palmer Cup at centre for the Northland Kauri. The idea of getting the ball in her hands early is enticing and she was brilliant for Northland in that position. She’s never done it in a test match though. And if you do try it, what do you do with Stacey Fluhler? Another of the Black Ferns major attacking weapons. Maybe you push her to 12? Fluhler played the 2017 tournament at centre and doesn’t have a massive body of work at 12 but if you’re prepared to play Woodman out of position to utilise your weapons then maybe you do the same with Fluhler.

If you did want to go down the path of a Fluhler/Woodman midfield combo with Tui and Leti-I’iga on the wings then I would be tempted to play Hazel Tubic at fullback. She’d assume more playmaking responsibilities and could pick up more of the kicking from hand duties to give Ruahei Demant more space.

What we do know is that Smith and co don’t have a huge amount of time to mess around trying different things. NZR’s strategic decision that they’d let their best try and play 7s and 15s this season means the ability to experiment and/or bed down their best combination will have to take place in the group stages of a World Cup. Might that work? Possibly. England and France, who presumably lie in wait at the business end of the tournament, will be trying to do analysis on players, combinations and a team that may only have one game together before a semi-final or final.

Whatever happens, the next (hopefully) five weeks of Black Ferns rugby will be fun to watch. Whatever combination of weapons they put on the park will have a country behind them and a licence from one of the best rugby brains on the planet to go out and play great footy.

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