England captain and newly topped World Rugby Girls’s Participant of the 12 months Marlie Packer mentioned she was “on cloud 9” after taking out each the award and the inaugural WXV 1 match.
“To be trustworthy, on the finish, I truly had some tears. I feel, you already know, not simply the final 4 weeks, being right here in New Zealand, we as a group have been actually pushed.”
The 33-12 win over the Black Ferns at Go Media Mt Sensible Stadium was a report loss for the world champions on residence soil, with Packer’s England aspect having fun with a shocking opening quarter that noticed them lead 19-0.
Marlie Packer reacts to successful WXV1 and World Participant of the 12 months
Marlie Packer reacts to successful WXV1 and World Participant of the 12 months
“It’s fairly emotional however I’m simply pleased with all the women in the way in which they carried out tonight. They’ve backed up each sport. This expertise, you already know, it’s not simply the squad of 23. It’s a complete squad affair. And you already know, the women that didn’t play tonight ready us for the efficiency tonight. So, I’ll take my hat off to them as properly.”
England interim coach Louis Deacon echoed his skipper’s ideas.
“You possibly can’t simply depend on one a part of the sport, set piece are one among our tremendous strengths,” Deacon mentioned.
“However like I mentioned earlier than the sport, we’re going to want greater than that immediately. The Black Ferns are an impressive group. They actually examined us and I feel if you happen to’re going to go toe to toe with them, you’ve acquired to have all components of the sport going. And that’s what the pleasing factor is. So yeah, like I mentioned earlier than, massively proud.”
Packer dismissed hypothesis that the win was fuelled by a need to make up for final yr’s Rugby World Cup last loss to New Zealand.
“I feel this week it’s been actually totally different,” she mentioned.
“We truly haven’t targeted on that in any respect. Like we speak concerning the aim we set 11 weeks in the past whenever you begin pre-season and you already know, the essences saved on coming again to us like you’re feeling prefer it’s due to this and our goal is to be placing in our greatest efficiency come this week.”
Black Ferns co-captain Kennedy Simon mentioned it was troublesome to cease a Pink Roses aspect in that form of temper, irrespective of how good the preparation was.
“They’re methodical, you already know,” Simon mentioned.
“A well-oiled engine. We did preview that they had been going to hold across the edge like that, and it was nearly successful these moments. That’s how they acquired the primary try to then the subsequent one which adopted. So I can see it was going to take a bit learnings from this. , that’s simply historical past. And like I mentioned, they’re an awesome aspect.”
Black Ferns Director of Rugby Allan Bunting mentioned his aspect “didn’t actually get their sport going.”
“In the direction of the tip of the primary half, we didn’t carry them round a bit. And the way in which we began the second half and if we’d have scored another attempt, that may have been a bit totally different. We had been let down a bit with self-discipline and a little bit of dealing with.”
England centre Helena Rowland echoed her coaches evaluation of the place the Pink Roses are at.
“Clearly an enormous outcome for us. We felt we’ve been constructing since had two video games, we’ve acquired a lot of recent stuff that’s been introduced in and I feel you possibly can see immediately it actually beginning to come collectively and yeah, culminated in that outcome for us.”
Strive scorer Sarah Bern mentioned taking part in the Black Ferns is “at all times superb”.
“It’s at all times going to be a problem, is at all times going to be that Battle of the Titans. And also you simply acquired to maintain going. You bought to maintain pushing on. It was superb to play them tonight and it was good simply to get the win.”
