eagles.rugby — The USA Women’s Eagles completed an intensive six-week tour ending in Auckland on Saturday afternoon, dropping their final match 79-14 to the New Zealand Black Ferns who offensively were too much to contain. (lead photo: Craig Butland)
“We didn’t play the game that we came here prepared to play,” USA Women Eagles Head Coach Sione Fukofuka said. “We gave the Black Ferns too much respect. We’ll need to work harder to be at an international standard for 80 minutes. There were moments in that game where we had some really positive execution, and then there were moments where we just didn’t hold the standards that we built.”
Out of retirement, Portia Woodman-Wickliffe had a career day with seven tries and spelled the story of the New Zealand wing attack as Katelyn Vaha’akolo also earned four. The USA improved their pace and ball movement this afternoon, but the middle-field play wasn’t tidy enough to keep the Black Ferns from game control. While the Eagles will come away from the four-match tour winless, the team do have a good foundation to work with in the first phase of a long Rugby World Cup campaign.
The USA began on the front foot, showing great ball movement and intent to strike first, finding themselves with a 5-meter lineout early. The ensuing maul was masterclass with real momentum pushing the Black Ferns back and over the tryline, unfortunately it was held up by New Zealand. Shortly after from the goal line drop out, Hope Rogers and Freda Tafuna crashed the line with Tafuna finding points and playing well with ball in hand and quite a few meters gained.
The USA did well to win penalties and won the possession game for the first 10 minutes. Cheta Emba pulled up after diving for a loose ball, she would remain on field for a bit until eventually being pulled out for reserve Tess Feury. The first half continued to play out in New Zealand’s favor as sevens stars Portia Woodman-Wickliffe and Jorja Miller did well to find space and race away into USA territory. However, Hope Rogers put the Eagles back into it after working through phase play to get across back over the line.
Woodman-Wickliffe scored a hat trick in the first half, carrying the Black Ferns to a 34-14 halftime score.
Coming out of the half, USA Assistant Coach Mel Bosman said the middle of the pitch was the pain point for the Eagles, needing to tidy up and hold New Zealand from opportunities to stage their breakaways.
Ten minutes into the second half the Black Ferns picked up another pair of tries with a fourth from Woodman-Wickliffe, triggering a string of substitutions from the Eagles to bring fresh energy in and counter the attack. The USA just weren’t able to gain control from New Zealand, the offload game for the home team was clean and aware, which allowed them to tally tries in the second half. The USA showed no slowing down in a tough second half though, playing hard in contact and visibly showing intent regardless of the scoreboard. The Black Ferns would eventually run away with a 79-14 win.
“Looking ahead into July, we have to make sure that we transfer what we do on the training pitch into match play,” Fukofuka said. “We’ve got to be more clinical. We had opportunities, and we’ve got to work harder in the middle of the field to make sure we convert them. Our conversion rate in the A zone was pretty high, but unfortunately, the opportunities we had there today were limited.”
The USA Women’s Eagles will now head home from Auckland for a short break and club play ahead of reassembling for the July tour, facing off with Fiji at home in Washington, D.C., on July 19 and later against Canada in Ottawa on August 1. The second tour of the year will be a critical period for the squad as they fuse learnings from the Pacific Four Series into those two test matches. Ultimately the first assembly of the year is an analytical opportunity for the Eagles to find their strengths as a group and excel on those in the next opportunity.