Stuff sports reporters15:52, Jul 18 2021
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Sanita Lavave of the Wellington Pride tries to break a tackle during the Farah Palmer Cup match against Otago in Porirua on Sunday.
Wellington produced a defensive masterclass to beat Otago 13-5 in their Farah Palmer Cup match at Jerry Collins Stadium in Porirua on Sunday. In addition to working tirelessly in the tackle and the breakdowns, the women from the capital wheeled out a superior scrum to deny Otago a bonus point.
SKY SPORT
Reigning champions Canterbury outscored Counties nine tries to two in Christchurch. It also helped that first five-eighth Amanda Rasch was accurate with her kicking, slotting all three of her attempts at goal to contribute eight points.
Brooker’s two tries – scored either side of the halftime break – were two of the home side’s best on a day Canterbury never trailed. She beat four defenders on the way to the line for her first, before wriggling out of another after collecting a chip kick to bag her second.
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Canterbury wing Isabella Waterman scored a peach of a try in her team’s big win against Counties Manukau in Christchurch on Saturday. However, wing Isabella Waterman’s try after the halftime hooter – when she got on the end of a smooth TeRauoriwa Gapper cross-field kick and carried a defender over the line – was probably the pick of the lot.
Born in 2004, Brunt – a prefect at Mount Albert Grammar School – is the youngest of the lot, having just turned 17. That means she wasn’t yet alive the last time the Blues men won Super Rugby – or Super 12, as it was known back then – in May 2003. But if that makes you feel old, don’t worry, because assistant coach Anna Richards is in the same boat. “They love telling me that they weren t born when I last played, so I m not too happy about that,” she joked on Thursday, when asked about her team’s teenagers.
CHIEFS
Chiefs women s coach Chad Shepherd says their players can be pioneers for the game.
Joseph Pearson12:10, Apr 30 2021
CHIEFS
Chiefs women s coach Chad Shepherd says their players can be pioneers for the game.
La Toya Mason played 70 tests for England, three Rugby World Cup finals, winning the 2014 decider, but reckons she never reached her full potential as a player. Now back home, as Taranaki Rugby’s head of women’s rugby and with the first Chiefs women’s team as an assistant coach, the former halfback, who was born in Auckland, says she is watching the women’s game grow in ways she never could have imagined at the start of her international career in 2009.