The plan was born in the belly of Eden Park.<\/p>\n
Fourteen weeks ago, the Black Ferns gathered for a gym session at the New Zealand rugby’s spiritual home.<\/p>\n
It’s a functional space; strip lighting, bench presses, pull-up bars and the tang of stale sweat.<\/p>\n
But before the work-out started, something out of the ordinary occurred.<\/p>\n
Allan Bunting, the team’s director of rugby, stood up before his team.<\/p>\n
“I have seen some amazing things on the field, but you need to know what our weapon is,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It’s a mentality.<\/p>\n
“When we are tired and feel like we can just be safe and hold, that when we’ve got to go.<\/p>\n
“That’s where big games are won.”<\/p>\n
After exhorting his team to meet fear, fatigue and pressure with energy, Bunting did the same.<\/p>\n
Saying he was “really scared” about the next part of his presentation, Bunting stripped to his waist and performed a full-throated haka to his team.<\/p>\n
“It was about stepping into your discomfort… stepping into your courage and into your gifts and what you’ve inherited from your ancestors,” he reflected later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The plan was born in the belly of Eden Park. Fourteen weeks ago, the Black Ferns gathered for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-79487","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}