The New Zealand Black Ferns have put on an emphatic display against the Wallaroos, running out 0-62 winners in front of over 5,300 fans at Ballymore.
Despite two key chances in both halves, it was an honest schooling for Jo Yapp’s side, who could not match the Black Ferns physicality and speed in broken play, despite improvements at set piece.
The result was capped off by Katelyn Vahaakolo scoring four of the ten tries for the visitors, giving the large Kiwi contingent at Ballymore plenty to cheer about.
The result will see the Wallaroo Trans-Tasman drought stretch to 30 years, as they look to chase that elusive first Kiwi scalp.
Georgia Ponsonby opened the scoring for the visitors in the opening four minutes of the game, and subsequent tries for Layla Sae, Ruby Tui and Vaha’akolo stunning the hosts.
However, the final 15 minutes of the half saw the Wallaroos wrestle back control, with several promising attack phases resulting in Eva Karpani going over the line, with ref Sara Cox initially calling for a try before TMO judged the ball to be held up.
A second Vaha’akolo try on halftime quelled any fightback and saw the visitors ahead 0-29.
She would pick up her hattrick in the 41st minute, with a moment of individual brilliance that tore apart the Wallaroo defence to score untouched under the posts.
The injection of Trillian Promare and Siokapesi Palu provided some improved defensive efforts from the hosts, however things continued to fall apart as the Wallaroos set piece came under increasing pressure, with Piper Duck forced from the field with a finger injury and Arabella McKenzie receiving a yellow card.
Tries to Logo-i-Pulotu Lemapu-Atai’i (Sylvia) Brunt saw the scoreline get ugly, however the final two tries off the rolling maul put an exclamation mark on the performance, with Atlanta Lolohea receiving the first one in her first match in black, while a 80th minute penalty try added insult to injury.
The Wallaroos have several attacking opportunities in the last ten minutes, however a 78th minute chip kick from McKenzie to Moleka that saw the replacement knock the ball on with the try line beckoning summed up the afternoon.
The black ferns were too strong again for the Wallaroos (Source: Getty Images)
The disappointment was hard to ignore for Wallaroos coach Jo Yapp in post-match.
“Really disappointing,” she responded when asked to summarise the match.
“It just wasn’t a reflection of how we’ve been training, and also how we played last week. We kind of went within ourselves as a squad and we didn’t really throw a punch like we wanted to.
“So, just really disappointed, and a lot of learnings to take away.”
However, it was the perfect afternoon for the Black Ferns, who will now commence preparations for their upcoming match with England at Twickenham in September before they begin their WXV1 campaign, which will take place in Canada.
The Wallaroos, meanwhile, will have August off before heading over to Europe to face Ireland in an international friendly in Belfast, before they commence their WXV2 campaign in South Africa.
For Yapp, she admitted there were no excuses for their performance, even despite the Black Ferns record.
“We didn’t have the same level of energy as we had last week against Fiji, we seemed to be quite passive in the collision area and they were winning the collision both sides of the ball, which makes it really hard for us.
“I think it is tough, isn’t it? When you’ve come in against a team you’ve never beaten, mentally that’s hard. It’s about trying to build the belief and the confidence in the squad that they can, because they didn’t play anywhere near what we’ve seen in training and what we saw last week. It has to be a mental thing.”
Despite the unflattering 25% winning record to start her tenure, Yapp however believes she has found her way forward for the squad to develop.
“Definitely, [that way forward] is why I’m frustrated with the result today, because we’ve seen loads of growth in this squad.
“Those high-performance areas, we’re seeing loads of progress, it just didn’t show in today’s result.
“Across the board, the strength and conditioning is so important, we’re trying to develop that because that allows us to play the style of play we want to play. We want to play a quick game, but at the moment, we are not quite there.
“We want to retain the ball. We want to be an attacking threat.”
The Wallaroos will go back into camp in August to prepare for their Ireland fixture, with Yapp revealing that a test match against Wales is also set to be played in Europe.