by frog
What comes after ‘three peat’? ‘Four peat’ doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
That’s the problem we have describing the awesome success of the Black Ferns who just won the Rugby World Cup for the fourth time in a row. It’s a great problem to have.
Congratulations to all the New Zealand players, to the captain Melissa Ruscoe, the coach Brian Evans and the team’s staff. Winning the World Cup is a fantastic achievement and we know you do it without anything like the same resources available to the All Blacks.
The Ferns were in fact part of a really good day for New Zealand women in sport yesterday; Valerie Adams made news with her latest shot put success while Caroline Powell (and Lenamore) added to New Zealand’s fine equestrian reputation with a win at Burghley.
For the Black Ferns, I wonder if they get the credit they deserve, playing in the considerable shadow of the men’s game. By contrast, Valerie Adams’s success stands alone. There seems to me to be more equality between men’s and women’s Olympic sports (gold is gold!). And of course in equestrian we see men and women in the same competition.
It may in fact be the Olympics that help women’s rugby gain a bigger share of the spotlight. Sevens will be part of the Olympics in Rio in 2016 and there’ll be a men’s and a women’s competition.
In order for sevens to join the Olympics, the International Rugby Board had to show a greater commitment to gender equality and it was forced to build more international 7s competition for women. Opportunity leads to success leads to recognition.
In the more immediate future, our football Ferns take a crack at World Cup qualification later this month. C’mon Kiwi c’mon!
Published in Society & Culture by frog on Tue, September 7th, 2010
Tags: black ferns, caroline powell, new zealand green party, valerie adams
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
HELL no. What’s that I hear? Our women’s sports teams can be world champions while holding down fulltime jobs and running fundraisers just to get together airfare and hotel costs?
(Or in the case of cricket, run their own bloody world cup for years before the ICC figured there was some cash in it.)
Crikey, I can’t even remember a Black Fern ever getting done for sexual assault, or whacking people with handbags, or seeing the team choke horribly in a quarter final … yeah, definitely not a team we should actually get behind, they’re chicks after all.
*is full of scorn*
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It amazes me how little feed back you get when it is a women’s sport that is involved. Now if it was that violent game Rugby your page would be full of it. Just goes to show what the male of the human species is really like. They just haven’t evolved.
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Here’s a link to Catherine’s speech congratulating the Black Ferns in the House today: http://www.inthehouse.co.nz/node/4936
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They have a lot to contend with in New Zealand. I don’t remember who was interviewing them on tele the other night, but soon after they’d won the World Cup, I remember one of the main questions from sports journalist (TV1 or TV3.. they’re the same to me) asking something like “Do you think your success will rub off on the men’s game?”
I’m sure the thought never crossed his mind (and why would it?) but it struck me as an incredibly arrogant and insulting question to ask in response to what they’ve achieved, as if the guy’s only reason for showing up to report on their success was to capitalise on a link to someone else’s event. Sheesh!
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Since I grew out of Rugby when I was twelve I can’t get enthusiastic about any team winning at Rugby. I once had the naive hope that Women’s Liberation would liberate men from their violence, instead the women are emulating the stupidest sports men play; even boxing!.
Oh well, it is good women now have more freedom to choose AND of course the media will give them less attention because the media is commercial – ratings are the priority. I know many women who prefer to watch men’s Rugby, Tennis, Cricket and Soccer but not many men who watch women’s Rugby, Tennis, Cricket and Soccer, plus netball.
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