“Scotland tested us in some areas which is really cool, particularly in our defence,” she said.<\/p>\n
“They were a quality team and last week’s performance was good but it’s not good enough to beat England.”<\/p>\n
Ball play will be a point of focus for the Kiwis, with the team aiming to make more controlled handling decisions.<\/p>\n
Black Ferns attack coach Tony Christie said being patient with the ball was crucial for maintaining energy levels over the 80 minutes.<\/p>\n
“We want to make sure we get that balance right, because we are a team that likes to run up from everywhere, but we’re just being smart around conserving some energy sometimes with our forwards and putting the ball behind our position,” Christie said.<\/p>\n
Ponsonby believes good management of the ball will give the Black Ferns the upper hand.<\/p>\n
“Making good decisions like when to carry, when to offload and just controlling the game and controlling the team,” she said.<\/p>\n
![\"England's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/england-rugby-VTVFM3BVMNDMBO7UA5KYICU3TM.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
England’s Sadia Kabeya in action against Canada during the WXV Global Series, September 19, 2026. (Source: Photosport)<\/p>\n
A year on from their World Cup win against France to claim third place, questions were raised about how the Kiwi women were feeling about their return to Twickenham. <\/p>\n
However Ponsonby said the squad is excited to prove their skills on the biggest stage.<\/p>\n
“We get to play England, the best team in the world, and there’s no better way to test your game and see where you sit than getting to come up against them so it’s going to be a huge battle. It’s going to be awesome,” she told 1News.<\/p>\n
“This is a game that you don’t want to miss. It’s gonna be exciting It’s gonna be physical, it’s gonna be close.”<\/p>\n
Christie also has faith the Black Ferns will perform in front of the daunting Twickenham crowd, saying he’s confident in his team.<\/p>\n
“All the signs are there, all the evidence, and there’s a real strong belief in the team, so we expect we’ll have a good performance,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We’re really confident in our game and our identity.”<\/p>\n
Saturday’s game will be the first between them since the Red Roses won the World Cup they hosted a year ago and replaced New Zealand as world champions. They were on track to meet in that 2025 final but New Zealand was humbled by Canada in the semifinals.<\/p>\n
Canada went on to lose the final but rebounded last weekend by stopping England’s unprecedented 39-match winning streak in a gripping 26-26 draw in Exeter.<\/p>\n
New Zealand is unbeaten this year at 7-0 under new coach Whitney Hansen.<\/p>\n
– Additional reporting by 1News <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After an absence of nearly two years, the biggest rivalry in women’s rugby returns when England hosts New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10898,111,43,139,69,1745],"class_list":["post-612110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-black-ferns","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-uk-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}