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April 11, 2025 7 mins

New Zealand Rugby believes the women's Super Rugby Aupiki final's scheduling clash with the Highlanders versus Fijian Drua will have little impact on viewership. 

The Blues versus Matatū finale at Eden Park on Saturday has been granted a primetime 7.05 pm kickoff, despite the regular season games all being played in the afternoon. 

NZR head of women's high-performance Hannah Porter is unconcerned about the battle for viewers with the Highlanders playing at the same time in Dunedin. 

Blues and Black Ferns second five eight Ruahei Demant joined D'Arcy Waldegrave to preview their grand final.  

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the All Sport Breakfast podcast with Darcy
Waldgrave from News Talks EDB, Big plays, bold opinions. The
All Sport Breakfast with Darcy Walter Grave News.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Talks EDB nine minutes after seven on the Your Sport
Breakfast on Saturday, the twelfth of April. Massive Day four
Super Rugby opik. It is the final the Blues Women
are hosting at Eden Park. Five pasts even part of
a double head of the curtain raiser of the blokes.
They are taking on the crosstown rivals in MO one Pacifica.

(00:42):
But it's all focused now on the Blues Women as
they take on at March to TiO. Joined by Hey
demand to talk about this fixture. Good morning, Hey.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
All morning, Thank you for having me this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
No, and thank you for joining us on match date.
It's a massive day. Looking to go back to that
back in Super Rugby, Opicky do we even dream about that?
Does that come up and converse?

Speaker 3 (01:07):
It's definitely been a bit of a goal for us
this year as our team reassembled. We've been really fortunate
most of our team were here last year and so
for I think over three quarters of our team, like
the reality of being able to be the first team
in Super Open Key to go back to back. It's
a very real thing for us having been there this

(01:29):
time last year, and it's cool to see that all
the hard work that our coaches and management and the
players have put in is only eighty minutes away.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
That's nothing's happened previous in the last six rounds really counts.
But if you're a fan of Mata too, you go, well,
they upset your apple cut. They were only lost this year,
aren't they.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yes, that's right, they were, And I think it came
at a really good time for our team. There were
a few talks that week around maybe a little bit
of complacency sitting in, and as much as we tried
to say no, I think it probably probably did have
a little bit of complacency sitting in, and we learned
a lot about ourselves and about our squad and weekend,
I think it's going to be better for it today.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
So what did you learn?

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Well's just and foremost, I think it was the opportunity
for us to actually run our full squad. A lot
of the girls that haven't had quality game time against
opposition like Mutter two. A few weeks ago, we could
probably already see the writing was on the war that
they were going to be our most likely opposition in
the finals, and so our squad had the opportunity to
get some minutes against a team that we're probably going

(02:30):
to come up against, soll we are coming up against today.
We learned some plan b's and c's. We learned a
little bit more about how to exit efficiently in our
back fifty, and probably the importance of building phases and
how that really precious team.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
When you played last weekend again it's at the same
ground it was Eaton Park up against the Hurricanes. Now
the Power winless this year? How good was that for
your preparation to play a team like that? I mean,
you ran out comfortable winners, but what can you pull
from a fixture.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
Like that that I think there was a lot that
we learned, Like for us, we put nearly fifty points
on on a team that you know, yeah, hasn't had
a consistent performance, hasn't had consistent performance this year and
haven't had a win, And there were still heaps of
parts of our game that we weren't happy with, but

(03:24):
still managed to get quite a comfortable win and so
for us to know that we haven't played our best
footy yet coming into the finals today, like our coaches there,
especially Carlos, and we had to be happy with that.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
You put yourself up a meat pie, didn't you. You've
got to be thinking out it's a little inside ball
from Lola haa. It was quite quite something. Else you
please to be on the teams, not as the b
or an endel. But it's nice to score one.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah, I think so if we says the inside back
in the middle of creating lots of opportunities, especially for
our faster, elusive players out on edges, is it's nice
to fall sometimes, but it's cool to actually just to
see that the things we work on at training and
the processes that we're following they work in the game.
So yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Where's the strength in the blue side? Where do you lift?
I mean you can look to a couple of individual
players and suggest maybe when you look at Tougher boths
on what you've got there, massive plantack there, the whole
back line, Markola, You've got Sylvia Brandon there, these are
weapons all over this shop. Is that your strongest part?

Speaker 3 (04:32):
I think that's a really good question I like. For me,
I don't even know where where our true strength is
because there's so many strengths all over the past. I think,
going off some of the performances that we've already had
this year, probably our greatest strength is actually in our discipline.
Our discipline to keep ball in hand and make smarter
decisions around whether we want to keep the ball alive

(04:53):
or whether it's just safer to set a RCK and
go again for the next phase. When we get a
bit excited and start throwing the ball around, I think
that's when we aren't at our best and we struggle
to build phases. So it's about trusting in the process
and continuing to pressure teams by retaining positions in building phases.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
That's massive. That game management and the ability to keep
it calm head under pressure. I'm not quite sure how
you actually trained for that. It's more something you pick
up game time and feel free to tell me if
I'm wrong, because I probably am. But this is something
very difficult to replicate, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
It is quite difficult to replicate that in a competition
like opake, where the assembly time is so short. It's
definitely a lot easier when we have players coming in
who have been exposed to higher level competitions. However, you know,
the game time that we have and a lot of
the games, like with manage to win most of our

(05:50):
games this year, a lot of them have been there
has been pressures that we've been exposed to that we
haven't been able to feel at training, and so there's
real gold in that. Yeah, but we're quite fortunate in
our team that we have a lot of word class
players who have played in pinnacle tournaments like Olympics and
World Cups, who have been in this moment before last year.

(06:12):
So yeah, there's lots of pressure moments that the whole
squad has been exposed to.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
What are the matter two bring to this exchange? Couple
losses so far this year which we've mentioned already managed
to beat your team once anyway, so you share it
at fifty to fifty. Where are the threats? What are
they bring there?

Speaker 3 (06:31):
They've got a couple of threats I think first and foremost,
like what's the last time we played them? We really
struggled to play with ball in hand because they kept
disrupting our set piece. The speed that they play the
gamer and the way that they move the ball around
is another threat that they bring. I think the key
to their team is their nine to ten, their combination
with Mayer and Hannah and so defensively, I think if

(06:54):
we can disrupt them, I think they'll struggle to get
their game.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Plan going supercul you're playing seven o'clock on Saturday night,
although unusual because most of your games on the afternoon.
How does that work for your bill? Is that a
good thing? I mean, you must be getting in fantastic.
The blokes are being our curtain raiser. But does that
work when you look at the fluency of the game
we've been playing throughout the year. Yeah?

Speaker 3 (07:16):
I think the different thing was the girls, right, if
most of our teams actually will play Club Brugby and
so the reality of training at seven o'clock at night,
is it new for the girls and so for us
to actually run out on Eden Park tonight, primetime Saturday night,
it's exciting and it's an excitement that the girls walk
towards and so really it's nothing new there.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
You say walk towards at hey demand, I'd say run
at it and tackle it. That's what you need to do.
And thank you very much as always for your time
will strength your arm. You go well tonight.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
Thank you so much, thanks for having me, thanks for
joining us.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
By.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
For more from the Your Sport Breakfast with Darcy Watergrave,
listen live to News Talk said Be on Saturday mornings,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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