Pride finding form in Women’s NPC

Wellington Pride captain Jackie Patea-Fereti runs in a try in their week two Farah Palmer Cup win over Canterbury Photo: Chainsaw Photos 

After relegation from the Premiership divison last year, the Wellington Pride are finding form and are on track for a shot at repromotion when the business end of the season kicks into gear in a fortnight.

After missing out to Hawke’s Bay in the opening week (22-25), the Pride have had wins over Canterbury (43-38), Otago (38-10) and Tasman (88-3) to assume pole position on the points table heading into the final fortnight of the regular season.

Wellington captain Jackie Patea-Fereti said the team is pleased with their current form and earning a home semi-final is the immediate goal.

“We are just trying to slowly build every week and we are pleased how we have done this so far,” said Patea-Fereti. “Especially after that first game, Hawke’s Bay played well against us and they have some good players so that was a setback to start with.”

Patea-Fereti was one of a small group of squad members including left wing Ayesha Leti-L’iga that missed the first round loss to Hawke’s Bay. These players returned in week two against Canterbury in their only sole round-robin crossover game against a Premiership side.

In a rollercoaster match, Canterbury took an early lead but the Pride came back to lead 22-12 at halftime.

With players such as Black Ferns halfback and teammate Kendra Cocksedge on the other side of halfway, Patea-Fereti knew Canterbury weren’t about to lie down in the second half. “The message was pretty clear, that we have got 40 minutes to concentrate and not slack off or that lead will quickly evaporate. The coaches told us to continue to trust our game-plan and when it is on out wide give it out wide.”

As it happened, Canterbury came back with two quick tries and duly took a 24-22 lead. But Wellington heeded the halftime message. The result was another three tries and a 42-24 lead that was surely the buffer they needed. “They came back again and scored two tries at the end and if the game had gone on a bit longer they could have scored again and might have won, so a lesson there was we need to play to the final whistle.”

The 38-10 win over Otago in week three was characterised by a slow start. The Pride were on the back foot throughout most of the first half and trailed 0-5 after 35 minutes.

“The feeling we had going into the Otago game was that everyone was quiet, no one was really awake. But also credit to Otago, I thought their defence was awesome and they had fast line speed.”

On Saturday the Pride put their lessons learnt from those two games into practice against Tasman, although Tasman were competitive for long periods in the first half. “They stole quite a lot of our ball from the rucks and made us work hard.”

The floodgates then opened, the Pride running in 14 tries all up, with the final score 88-3 the Pride’s biggest win in 20 years of the Women’s NPC, surpassing the 81-5 they scored against Poverty Bay in 1999.

Coming up are two matches against new opposition, North Harbour (away this weekend) and Taranaki (home next weekend). Based on results so far, the Pride should beat both teams and the immediate goal of a home semi-final would be secured.

Results aside, Patea-Fereti said that the increasing depth in the Pride squad and in women’s rugby in Wellington in general is hugely positive.

“There are a lot of young players coming through. I remember mentioning at a dinner we had that when I started playing that there wasn’t a lot of young girls but now the majority coming through are between college aged to 23.”

Patea-Fereti’s first season in the Pride was in 2006, the year they won the competition.

“When I first started playing club rugby there were only five teams, then it dropped down to four the following year, now it is two divisions of teams. Not only that, the majority of the players are young and there is a lot of talent coming through.”

Plus some recently established players projecting their strong recent club form on to the representative stage, such as left wing Ayesha Leti-L’iga, who has scored 48 tries in 16 combined club and NPC games in 2018 so far.

“She is one of the players that we look to try and get the ball to because she can turn nothing into something, she is pretty much our weapon.”

Petone teammate Accacia Te Iwimate is in top form at first five five-eighth. “She is experienced and she is a really good halfback as well. But having her at first five-eighth is working out good for us as well.”

“Jonah Ngan-Woo is young and coming through as well, she is a great ball carrier.”

Like Patea-Fereti, Ngan-Woo is equally at home at either lock or in the loose forwards. Where does Patea-Fereti prefer to play? “I prefer playing in the loosies, but I don’t mind where I play, it is more about me being able to do my role to the best that I can in whatever position they put me in.”

Of the Wellington players in the Black Ferns squad that played two Tests against Australia, Patea-Fereti was the only one that played in both.

“I was on the bench in both games. The first one over in Australia I came off the bench but got yellow carded and then in the second game I got just under 20 minutes and I didn’t get carded in that!”

Following the Women’s NPC, the Black Ferns are heading back overseas. “They select another 28 players to travel overseas to play one game against USA and over to France.” The two Tests against France are in Toulon on 9 November and Grenoble on 17 November (both NZT).

The focus on the next four weekends is the business end of the Farah Palmer Cup competition, with several big matches ahead in both the Premiership and Championship division.