{"id":171187,"date":"2025-09-26T20:56:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T20:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/171187\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T20:56:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T20:56:11","slug":"black-ferns-v-france-new-zealand-side-eye-strong-womens-rugby-world-cup-finish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/171187\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Ferns v France: New Zealand side eye strong Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup finish"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Black Ferns will welcome a handful of players back<\/a> into the match-day 23 for the test against France. In the starting XV, lock Laura Bayfield and loose forward Jorja Miller<\/a> have been cleared to return after undisclosed injuries kept them out of the semifinal. <\/p>\n

On the bench, hooker Vici-Rose Green, loosehead prop Awhina Tangen-Wainohu and winger Katelyn Vahaakolo return to the squad, while lock Alana Bremner moves back to the bench with Bayfield starting. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s only the second time since they won their maiden World Cup title in 1998 that the New Zealand side have missed the World Cup final, with Canada meeting England in the main event being a repeat of the 2014 final in which England won their second crown. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou probably didn\u2019t see the best of us last week,\u201d Black Ferns director of performance Allan Bunting said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not taking anything away from Canada. They were pretty sharp, they were good, and when they score tries at eight, 11 and 24 minutes, we were chasing the game a bit. We\u2019ve got another opportunity to really get our game going. We\u2019ve got a massively talented squad and we\u2019ve got an opportunity to really go and show it this week.\u201d <\/p>\n

With the outing being their last for 2025, the Black Ferns will look to finish on a high and hold on to their spot as the No 3-ranked team in the world. Should they lose, France \u2013 currently world No 4 \u2013 will take that spot from them and the New Zealanders will fall outside the top three for the first time.<\/p>\n

The test also gives them another chance to address their issues around discipline, which again proved costly against Canada when they were on the wrong side of a 10-6 count. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere wasn\u2019t any lack of intent, right? Obviously discipline has been evident in all of our games. The focus has been on trying to be a bit cleaner and clearer and sharper with our decisions, but we don\u2019t want to stop playing either. It\u2019s pretty tough when you\u2019ve got a penalty count like that \u2013 I think it was 10-1 at 75 minutes \u2013 that\u2019s always going to be tough,\u201d Bunting said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe still want our ladies to play, but just be a bit cleaner and clearer and show better pictures. We want to be decisive too.\u201d <\/p>\n

Black Ferns: 1. Chryss Viliko, 2. Georgia Ponsonby, 3. Tanya Kalounivale, 4. Maiakawanakaulani Roos, 5. Laura Bayfield, 6. Liana Mikaele-Tu\u2019u, 7. Jorja Miller, 8. Kaipo Olsen-Baker, 9. Risaleaana Pouri-Lane, 10. Ruahei Demant (c), 11. Portia Woodman-Wickliffe, 12. Logo-I-Pulotu Lemapu-Atai\u2019i Sylvia Brunt, 13. Stacey Waaka, 14. Braxton Sorensen-McGee, 15. Renee Holmes.<\/p>\n

Bench: 16. Vici-Rose Green, 17. Awhina Tangen-Wainohu, 18. Amy Rule, 19. Alana Bremner, 20. Layla Sae, 21. Maia Joseph, 22. Theresa Setefano, 23. Katelyn Vahaakolo.<\/p>\n

Christopher Reive<\/a> joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Black Ferns will welcome a handful of players back into the match-day 23 for the test against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[1914,22666,64,63,303,100083,3933,12978,26046,38860,2592,1899,20034,22795,16496,17528,3127,35062,760,46907,8856,85,17841,1928,38937,24351,1720,3205],"class_list":["post-171187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-against","tag-ahead","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-black","tag-bronze","tag-cup","tag-eye","tag-ferns","tag-finish","tag-france","tag-have","tag-look","tag-match","tag-medal","tag-motivation","tag-new","tag-night","tag-rugby","tag-saturday","tag-side","tag-sports","tag-strong","tag-their","tag-very","tag-womens","tag-world","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}