Black Ferns legend Portia Woodman-Wickliffe comes out of retirement for Rugby World Cup
Black Fern Portia Woodman scores for New Zealand in their Rugby World Cup quarter-final against Wales.
Photo:
Andrew Cornaga / www.photosport.nz
Black Ferns legend Portia Woodman-Wickliffe is stepping out of international retirement with sights set on a third Rugby World Cup.
Woodman-Wickliffe has signed an eight-month contract with NZ Rugby and is set to join the Black Ferns in their first assembly this weekend.
More to come...
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter
curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
14 minutes ago
- RNZ News
Calls to allow netball players to represent two countries
Netball New Zealand has called for World Netball to amend its strict eligibility criteria, which prevents players representing two different countries at consecutive world cups. Sports reporter Bridget Tunnicliffe spoke to Lisa Owen. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
RNZ News
44 minutes ago
- RNZ News
Auckland schools stamping out use of 'Year 14' rugby players
sport education 36 minutes ago A dozen Auckland High schools are voluntarily making changes to their competition rules to stamp out the use of so called Year 14 players. Year 14's are students that return for an extra sixth year of high school so they can carry on playing sport. They're considered to have an unfair advantage due and age, size and experience. The issue is in the spotlight after Marlborough Boys' College confirmed it's fielding a first XV team with five year fourteen players .in this season's Miles Toyota Premiership. Auckland Grammar is one of the schools making changes to their rules to avoid the issue. Principal Tim O'Connor spoke to Lisa Owen.
RNZ News
2 hours ago
- RNZ News
Super Rugby Pacific: Brumbies coach Stephen Larkham predicts physical battle with Chiefs
Chiefs v Brumbies Kick-off: 7:05pm Saturday 14 June FMG Stadium Waikato, Hamilton Live blog updates on RNZ Not many people are giving the Brumbies a shot at tipping up the Chiefs on Saturday night, but then again, not many tipped the Blues last weekend either. Coach Stephen Larkham, who won two Super Rugby titles with the side in the early 2000s, was confident that perennially strong Australian side was ready to potentially pull off an upset in their do or die semifinal. "It's a big challenge going down there, obviously. We've played some big games in that stadium and the results haven't gone our way," said Larkham at the team's Auckland training base of Dilworth College, before reflecting on what was learned from the Blues' intense 20-19 victory last Saturday night. "The physical battle was there from both teams. (The Blues were) very dominant with their forwards, very heavy at the breakdown and I thought that worked pretty well. I mean, the biggest thing we take out of it is that we need to be physical this weekend. Then obviously there's things that we've been working on, throughout the season over the last couple of weeks and games, that we think have been going pretty well." One of those will be the ability to control territory, something the Brumbies excelled at in their win over the Blues at Eden Park back in round four. Larkham highlighted the kick strategy as a key one for his side in a game that may well follow the low-scoring template set in the Chiefs' last home game. Damian McKenzie is tackled by Brumbies Declan Meredith. Photo: Brett Phibbs / "We've got the conditions today, where the ground is a little bit muddy, and ball was very slippery in the rain. We're sort of expecting the same on the weekend…we've been working on our kick strategy for the whole year. It doesn't really change with the wet, we like to have variation. We like to have balance with our kicking game…that's really determined by where we are on the field." Larkham has named an unchanged match day squad from his side that beat the Hurricanes in their play-off on Saturday night. The inside back pairing of Ryan Lonergan and Noah Lolesio will be in charge of implementing the kicking plan, but the Brumbies do possess some serious firepower in the back in Tom Wright, Len Ikitau and Corey Toole. However, Larkham stressed that they all need to be given good ball in order to do anything, something the Brumbies have been very good at this season. "Our ability to hold the ball through ten phases and score tries is the best in the competition, and that comes from all the breakdown work. So we spent a lot of time on that this year and we certainly know that's going to be important this weekend," he said. "If you sort of look at just about every game in Super Rugby this year, it's gone down to the wire. Even when you've got first place playing last, it's come down to the wire as well. So we've spoken about that, that when you get into the finals, every team is fairly evenly matched, and it will come down to those little moments."
