2022 Black Ferns
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The Black Ferns have been forced to make three changes to their Pacific Four Series squad, with Renee Wickliffe, Hazel Tubic and potential debutant Kelsey Teneti announced to be joining the team.
Concussion has sidelined first five-eighths Patricia Maliepo and while it was hoped both Grace Steinmetz and Carla Hohepa would be fit for the series their respective foot injuries see them withdrawn from the squad.Wickliffe and Tubic are no strangers to the black jersey, both are World Cup winners and earlier this year were members of the Chiefs Manawa team that won the inaugural Sky Super Rugby Aupiki competition. 19-year-old Kelsey Teneti is the eighth potential debutant to be included into the Black Ferns squad. Contracted to the Black Ferns Sevens in Tauranga, Teneti has been a key member of the Waikato Farah Palmer Cup team in recent years. Teneti will be joined by fellow teenager, Sylvia Brunt who has been called in as a travelling reserve to complete the 32-player squad. The 18-year-old Aucklander has shown huge promise playing in the Farah Palmer Cup and at Black Ferns camps so will gain valuable experience being embedded in the squad for the Pacific Four Series.
Tubic's inclusion is a positive. A meteoric rise for Teneti.
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S Stargazer referenced this topic on
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@Bovidae said in 2022 Black Ferns:
@Crucial said in 2022 Black Ferns:
@Bovidae I thought Teneti was still 18.
If I check the Waikato FPC player profiles, Teneti turned 19 on May 12.
They must have corrected themselves as this one says otherwise (5 Dec 2003)
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@Machpants said in 2022 Black Ferns:
@Bovidae said in 2022 Black Ferns:
Definitely a new era. Only 13 caps in the starting forward pack.
Jesus, England are going to eat them up. Building for 2025, hopefully we can return the favour of taking England home world cup
So are we just abandoning competing for the home RWC, or are these young kids better than the old stagers?
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@Crucial Yeah, that was the info I was looking for in the media release, but it doesn't contain an "unavailable (due to injury)" list.
The article on Stuff doesn't contain any injury info either and NZH hasn't even published an article about the team naming (yet).
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@canefan Obviously, the aim will be winning the RWC (which coach doesn't want to win it), but maybe they just thought the previous coaching set-up had it all wrong and they think this may work better? Wait and see how it goes, but I'll be watching with interest.
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@canefan said in 2022 Black Ferns:
@Machpants said in 2022 Black Ferns:
@Bovidae said in 2022 Black Ferns:
Definitely a new era. Only 13 caps in the starting forward pack.
Jesus, England are going to eat them up. Building for 2025, hopefully we can return the favour of taking England home world cup
So are we just abandoning competing for the home RWC, or are these young kids better than the old stagers?
I don't know, I think we've hardly played and when we did we got smashed. Covid on top of the rubbish women's rugby set up in NZ & SH means there really is not much to be done beyond damage limitation.
As was pointed out up thread, England have players with more caps than the number of times the black ferns have played tests. I would imagine many England players have more caps than BF starting teams, and more first class games than the entire squad!
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@Machpants Yep, Kendra Cocksedge will become the most capped BF with 58 tests, but during the Women's 6 Nations, England centre Emily Scarratt played her 100th test and I don't even think she's the most capped England player. They play so many more test matches, it's just ridiculous if you think about how few tests the BFs play each year, although this may increase in the post-covid era, if they finally make the Pacific Four Series a permanent event (and maybe add Fijiana and Japan to make it a Pacific 6 Nations).
Before Covid, they had the International Super Series with NZ, USA, Canada and France, but that tournament was sacrificed each time WR had other ideas, for example, replacing it by Women's RWC qualifiers for the USA and Canada, and then not playing other tests.
