Portia Woodman-Wickliffe marks Black Ferns return with seven-try showing
Portia Woodman-Wickliffe's return from retirement paid big dividends for New Zealand at the weekend when the veteran winger scored seven tries to help the world champions thrash the United States 79-14 and retain the Pacific Four title.
Ireland, who beat the Black Ferns in last year's WXV1, will meet New Zealand in the third game of their World Cup Pool C campaign in September.
Katelyn Vahaakolo on the other wing chipped in with four tries but it was Woodman-Wickliffe who caught the eye with some devastating finishing as the team produced a statement win three months before their Women's World Cup title defence.
The 33-year-old, who was playing her first Test since the 2022 World Cup final after coming out of retirement in April, also overhauled Vanessa Coutts as her country's all-time leading try scorer with 45 five-pointers in 26 internationals.
"It's always amazing to represent the black jersey and the legacy that we have, but it's really cool for where we can go from here," twice World Player of the Year Woodman-Wickliffe said.
"For me, I just finish what the girls are doing, if I'm there to finish the tries out wide, then that's my job done. We've still got a lot of work to do as a whole team, which is really exciting."
After drawing 27-27 in their last outing against Canada, New Zealand needed to beat the US by 25 points and earn a bonus point on Saturday to retain the Pacific Four title.
Despite the Americans scoring the first try, that proved no problem at Auckland's North Harbour Stadium with Sevens standout Jorja Miller (above) also on fire on her Test debut at openside flanker.
Canada earlier also finished the tournament unbeaten after putting sixth-ranked Australia to the sword 45-7 with a clinical performance at Brisbane's Lang Park.
New Zealand have won six of the nine previous Women's World Cups but are ranked third in the world behind World Cup hosts England and Canada.
Scott Bemand's Ireland side will play World Cup warm-ups against Scotland and Canada at the start of August.
They face Japan, Spain and New Zealand in Pool C of the World Cup in August and September.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Irish Sun
an hour ago
- The Irish Sun
Man Utd STUCK with Jadon Sancho's £300,000-a-week wages as Chelsea pay huge fine after failing permanent transfer talks
MANCHESTER UNITED are stuck with Jadon Sancho after he left Chelsea following the end of his loan. The England winger had a mixed time at Stamford Bridge, failing to live up to expectations again. 1 Jadon Sancho is heading back to Manchester United after his Chelsea loan ended Credit: Getty He did finish his time with the Blues with a goal in the hammering of Beal Betis in the Europa Conference final. But, There was a clause in his loan deal that meant Todd Boehly's team had to sign him permanently. But after failing to agree terms on him staying, he will go to Old Trafford, for now. The 25-year-old will now explore his options in the Premier League and Europe over his next move. It is understood he is not in Red Devils manager Most read in Football He has been made available by the club for a move away, with the funds made reinvested in the squad. But, for now, the club are stuck with his £300,000-a-week wages, until he leaves. Here is why Liam Delap is the perfect striker for Chelsea And he will still have hopes of playing for England again in the future. The Three Lions will head to the United States next summer for the 2026 World Cup. Sancho will want to be in Chelsea 2025/26 Home Kit: Available Now! *If you click on a link in this boxout we will earn affiliate revenue. Step into the future with the Available in a range of sizes for adults and children, ensuring fans of all ages can show their support in style . £64.99 Celebrate the Blues and wear your pride for the city – He scored just three goals in 31 Premier League appearance for Chelsea during his loan. There was hopes he would stay on and restart his career, but they failed to materialise. Sancho joined United in the summer of 2021 for around £71 million from However, he failed to live up to the huge transfer fee, scoring nine times in 58 league appearances. Read more on the Irish Sun He was then loaned back to Dortmund last year, where he bagged twice in 14. His Chelsea loan came about at the start of last season, but he never truly hit the heights they hoped.
The Irish Sun
3 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
Kane vs Kiwis at Club World Cup, Man Utd in Asia and Bournemouth vs Everton in New Jersey… football must never rest
IN the wee small hours of Sunday at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Paris Saint-Germain's players were celebrating the greatest achievement of their lives. They had Advertisement 10 Paris Saint-Germain won their first Champions League crown on Saturday Credit: Shutterstock Editorial 10 Luis Enrique will take his side to the Club World Cup in the US Credit: Shutterstock Editorial But if Luis Enrique and his side had wanted to put their feet up and bask in this ultimate glory, then they were sadly mistaken. Almost immediately after their 5-0 win, Enrique and his stars would be peppered with questions about their prospects at the Club World Cup — a 32-team, month-long tournament designed to carpet-bomb TV schedules with even more football, starting on Sunday week. Does the Club World Cup now represent ultimate glory, rather than the Champions League? Is that, in the words of Finchy in The Office, 'the real quiz'? Advertisement READ MORE IN FOOTBALL Because football — even in the odd-numbered summers which used to give us a brief respite from the thing — must never, ever rest. And so next week, PSG will go to America, where they will play the Urawa Red Diamonds, The Last Shadow Puppets and the Seattle Sounders — only one of which is really the name of an English band. And on Sunday week, And they WILL play. Advertisement Most read in Football BEST ONLINE CASINOS - TOP SITES IN THE UK And there is nothing we can do to stop them playing. Even though we already know Bayern Munich are significantly better than Auckland City. And Harry Kane will play. Even though his body is creaking. Chelsea finally discover Club World Cup opponents as former star, 38, assists dramatic winner to set up reunion Even though he hasn't had a proper rest in years. Even though he surely can't think of anything worse than having to play Auckland City. Advertisement Because Fifa are offering $1BILLION in prize money. And two days later, you can watch in HD as Ulsan HD of Because in football there must be no sundown. Only the Mamelodi Sundowns. And Advertisement And And the whole thing will go on for every bit as long as an actual World Cup, with countries, used to go on for. 10 The Club World Cup is set to commence on Sunday week Credit: AFP 10 Lionel Messi will play in the revamped tournament Credit: Getty Advertisement Although not as long as next year's actual World Cup, which will have 48 nations and 104 matches in it and will go on for even longer. Oh and there will still be a third-place play-off. Because what else would we do with ourselves on Saturday July 18, 2026, if we couldn't watch another game of football between two utterly deflated, exhausted teams? Advertisement But that doesn't matter because, after the worst season in their modern history, United's players travelled 14,000 miles to play post-season friendlies in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong so that the club could fulfil £10million worth of sponsorship commitments. And yes 'net zero' is supposed to be an environmental policy rather than United's goalscoring output against the ASEAN All-Stars. During the half-time interval of that Because people in Mumbai will choose Apollo tyres if an error-prone Cameroonian goalkeeper tells them to. And Michelin and Bridgestone and Pirelli won't get a look in, just so long as Dalot presses home Apollo's core messages, which are 'Going The Distance' and 'Conquer Every Road'. Advertisement 10 Man Utd played two post-season friendlies in Asia Credit: AP 10 Harry Kane seemingly never gets a summer off Credit: AP While Maguire was flying to India, to tell people that 'the journey is as important as the destination', And then issuing a social-media apology, in which he said he didn't actually regret giving the finger. Advertisement Because it isn't enough that Amad's mother is abused during the football season. She needs to be abused during the close season as well. And her son needs to retaliate. Because there needs to be online content and, if the internet never sleeps, then why should football sleep, along with its content-creating by-product, the abuse of really tired footballers? Last year, Advertisement But is that really enough, when these footballers travelled in first-class luxury and stayed in excellent hotels? The BBC's Race Across The World is an extraordinarily successful TV show because contestants must travel on overnight buses and then muck out animals to raise extra cash. 10 Man Utd lifted the Defining Education Challenge Cup after beating Hong Kong Credit: Getty 10 Tottenham played Newcastle in Melbourne in May 2024 Credit: Getty Advertisement Why shouldn't footballers do the same on post-season and pre-season tours? Wouldn't that provide better content? This Saturday, And next Tuesday, England will play But it's not as if we'd have to wait long for football without this new thing. Advertisement Next month, there will be a North London Derby in Hong Kong and Bournemouth will play Because why wouldn't we want to watch Bournemouth play Everton in July — even if, when the fixtures come out in a fortnight, we might find out that they are playing each other in August? The thing is, Bournemouth versus Everton has been far too parochial until now. When Bournemouth are at home, only 11,000 people get in to watch it. Advertisement What about the blue-collar workers of New Jersey, the people Bruce Springsteen writes ballads about? Don't they deserve their fix of Bournemouth versus Everton, instead of just shotgun, teenage weddings and dreaming about escaping from small towns on motorbikes, kind of stuff? And the answer is, yes, they do deserve Bournemouth versus Everton. Just like you deserve Red Bull Salzburg, the second best team in Austria, versus CF Pachuca, the eighth best team in Mexico. That one's on Wednesday June 18 at 11pm. Followed by Al-Ain versus Advertisement Eyes down, look in. We'll sleep when we're dead. 10 Fans in the US will be able to get a glimpse of James Tarkowski Credit: Getty 10 Bournemouth are set to be a hit across the pond Credit: Getty
The 42
4 hours ago
- The 42
'It's the whole calendar. I don't know who's in charge but it definitely needs to be looked at'
ON WHAT IS an important day for the Republic of Ireland WNT, fixture scheduling and Nations League format confusion have become equally important discussion points. Both Ireland manager Carla Ward, and team captain Katie McCabe, agree that the system needs to be reviewed. In the last week, McCabe has played in a Champions League final for Arsenal and a Nations League fixture for Ireland in Istanbul. The Ireland squad are heading to the USA in June to play two international friendlies, but she will not be available. Everything is packed in too tightly. The Nations League is Ireland's main concern at the moment, and the format has long been a source of confusion. In truth, the Ireland women's team is no stranger to convoluted qualification routes. Their path to the 2023 World Cup — and a first-ever major tournament — was far from linear. At one point, Denise O'Sullivan admitted that she found the whole system 'really confusing' and that her teammates 'tried to explain it 100 times' before she simply decided to detach from the diagrams and focus on the games in front of her. The Nations League is running a similarly protracted line. Ireland's yo-yo form between League A and League B has probably added to the confusion, but for now, they are in the second tier in what has been labelled the group of death. Tonight, they face Group B2 leaders Slovenia in Cork's Páirc Uí Chaoimh and thankfully, the aim is simple: win the game by four goals or more to achieve automatic promotion to League A. If they fall short in that mission, they still have a play-off route awaiting them in October. There's clarity with this fixture but broadly speaking, Ireland captain Katie McCabe feels the whole Nations League structure is chaotic. Advertisement 'It's nuts — the set-up, the goals, points, relegation and promotion,' she begins ahead of tonight's 6pm kick-off at Cork GAA headquarters. Similar to the attitude that her teammate O'Sullivan adopted for the World Cup play-off, McCabe is intent on narrowing her focus to keep her mind clear. Republic of Ireland players attending training at Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO 'All we can concentrate on is winning games and progressing performances game by game. I'll let you all do the maths and we [will] focus on winning matches. 'It's the timing of the fixtures as well, like what we had to do last year all through the summer where you're finishing a season and you've to kind of rest but kind of keep fit for the next block of games and it's hard mentally and physically from a periodisation point of view to do that. So, the timing of the fixtures needs to be looked at as well in my opinion.' McCabe helped Arsenal end an 18-year wait for Champions League success last week but left the celebrations early for Ireland's crucial Nations League trip to Türkiye. She wanted to be available for international duty but feels the schedule is too congested. It's an issue which has become synonymous with McCabe's club in recent years. Arsenal players including Leah Williamson and Beth Mead have suffered ACL injuries which are believed to be linked with the increased playing demands on female players. 'It's the whole calendar,' says McCabe. 'I don't know who's in charge of it but it definitely needs to be looked at. 'What it will create over time and we've already seen it in recent years is burnout in players and major injuries. You've got world-class players that will be sitting out of tournaments through injuries and we don't want to see that. We want the best players in the world playing at tournaments on the biggest stage. I just hope it doesn't cause too much more harm to us as players going forward.' Both McCabe and Ireland head coach Carla Ward agree that returning to League A is their objective but there is an argument for staying in League B at the moment. The next promotion to the top tier would give them a better pathway to the 2027 World Cup. McCabe stresses that League B is a difficult competition but wants to keep company with the best nations in world football. Ultimately, everyone in the Ireland camp is united in their ambition to get to the top tier. Ireland manager Carla Ward looks on at her team's last training before Tuesday's kick-off. Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO 'We've discussed it as staff,' says Ward, 'but it's bonkers because if you stay in [League] B now, you are in a better position to win League A and get one less qualifying round to the World Cup. But how does that give motivation?' 'We don't want to think like that. We are naturally competitive and we want to win the group. 'It needs looking at. As soon as the Nations League came along, it's good because there's no more friendlies. Every country is getting more competitive, but the structure to say that if we get promoted to League A, but then we get relegated, for example, we would be in a far weaker position than somebody in League B.' Now, that the confusing and tiring talk of scheduling and format structures is done, let's reset to focus on this evening's action. Ireland face a huge challenge in defeating Slovenia by more than four goals, but it's the route they're determined to take. A huge game awaits in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
