Aug 24, 2025, 02:07 PM ET<\/p>\n
YORK, England — New Zealand began the defence of their Women’s Rugby World Cup crown with a 54-8 over Spain on Sunday.<\/p>\n
While the score line suggests a relatively comfortable afternoon for the Black Ferns, it was anything but with the 7,458-strong crowd treated to an entertaining afternoon of rugby.<\/p>\n
Spain matched New Zealand’s physicality and made it difficult for the defending champions with a host of small wins throughout the first half.<\/p>\n
Their goal-line defence was resilient and they played smart rugby, choosing the right moments to kick and when to run the ball.<\/p>\n
A try from Ines Antolinez Fernandez on the 80-minute mark earned by far the biggest cheer of the afternoon with Spanish and neutral fans delighted.<\/p>\n
Monica Castelo produced 22 tackles while Alba Campbell and Lourdes Alameda got through a mountain of work at the breakdown where Spain had good success at times.<\/p>\n
Portia Woodman-Wickliffe marked her third World Cup with a try.\u00a0Stu Forster\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
While the Black Ferns didn’t truly look like conceding in the first half, they will have been frustrated with some handling errors that halted their rhythm and prevented more tries.<\/p>\n
Sevens star Jorja Miller got New Zealand moving with a quick-fire double, the first coming on the left-hand side after some nice footwork left the Spanish defence floundering.<\/p>\n
She used her out-and-out pace for the second after Braxton Sorensen-McGee found her in space on the right wing.<\/p>\n
Player of the match Liana Mikaele-Tu’u added a third for the Black Ferns, charging over from close range. All three first-half tries were converted from he boot of Renee Holmes.<\/p>\n
Coach Allan Bunting made sweeping changes at the break, with Ruahei Demant, Kaipo Olsen-Baker, Risaleaana Pouri-Lane, Laura Bayfield all coming on and the bench made an immediate impact, bringing energy and direct rugby to the second-half.<\/p>\n
Ayesha Leti-I’iga scored a second-half double.\u00a0Danny Lawson\/PA Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Ayesha Leti’-I’iga and Georgia Ponsonby added two mores within ten minutes of the restart and the Black Ferns had their bonus point.<\/p>\n
Olsen-Baker’s, afternoon — and potentially tournament — was cut short with what appeared to be an ankle injury. The 23-year-old was stretchered off in tears after 50 minutes.<\/p>\n
However, the crowd soon had something to cheer about, with Portia Woodman-Wickliffe coming on and scoring her first try of the campaign.<\/p>\n
Leti’-I’iga nabbed a double before also being forced off through injury, while Theresa Setefano capped off the scoring for New Zealand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aug 24, 2025, 02:07 PM ET YORK, England — New Zealand began the defence of their Women’s Rugby…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-371608","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115087886567653379","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}