Australia has still never beaten New Zealand in 29 attempts at women's international rugby. On Saturday night at Leichhardt Oval, the gap looked a lot smaller than that record suggests.
The Blues held on to beat the NSW Waratahs 24-17 in the Women's Super Rugby Champions Final, claiming back-to-back trans-Tasman titles. The scoreline mattered less than the manner of it: twelve months ago the same fixture in Auckland finished 36-5. This time the Waratahs, missing a long list of players and firm underdogs, spent the final quarter camped in Blues territory and were denied only by a breakdown penalty with 10 minutes left.
Maya Stewart opened the scoring for the hosts after a cutout ball from Caitlyn Halse. The Blues answered with a double strike — prop Chryss Viliko powering over close in, then Katelyn Vaha'akolo chipping ahead from near halfway, with Braxton Sorensen-McGee winning the race to the loose ball before finding the Tongan winger in support. Waiaria Ellis levelled it in the 25th minute and added two clutch ruck pilfers, but Vaha'akolo struck again on the half-time siren for 17-12.
Captain Maiakawanakaulani Roos crashed over 15 minutes into the second half to give the visitors a buffer. Brittany Merlo hauled the Waratahs back within seven off a rolling maul, and when Danny-Elle Fesolai was binned for repeated infringements the home side had their chance. It never came.
"Super proud of the group, particularly proud of the effort tonight," Waratahs coach Mike Ruthven said afterwards. "We certainly challenged the Blues tonight. I thought we made life really difficult for them at times and that's a reflection of what this team's capable of."
Roos put the escape down to how the Blues train.
"We train under pressure, and so when we play under pressure in those big moments, we just rose to the levels of our training and we're able to make those calls."
The result extends a period of near-total Blues dominance — they won a third straight Super Rugby Aupiki title last weekend, beating Matatu 28-21 in Christchurch, before adding this. But the more interesting conversation came from the losing dressing room.
"This isn't a walkover game for them," Waratahs captain and Wallaroos stalwart Emily Chancellor said. "We don't have any idea how they came over thinking it was going to go, but I'm so proud to be able to say that it was a genuinely entertaining game of rugby. And I hope that it decides what's coming in the future from an international and domestic perspective."
The timing sharpens that. Wallaroos and Black Ferns squads are expected within days, and the two nations meet again on 22 August — a fixture New Zealand has never lost since the rivalry began in 1994.
Ruthven singled out Ellis, the flyhalf pressing her claim on the Wallaroos No.10 jersey off six Test caps. "She's always had the talent, she's always had the skill set. The way she embeds in the team, the way she drives certain messages ... she's maturing really well at the moment." Scrum-half Tia Hinds, a sevens convert, was the other breakout of NSW's seventh Super Rugby Women's title campaign.
Amelia Whitaker, the 19-year-old named NSW player of the year, and Wallaroos winger Desiree Miller were both ruled out shortly before kickoff. Ruthven expects both to be available for national selection.
Blues coach Willie Walker, meanwhile, is pushing for the two competitions to stop existing in isolation. Australian, Fijian and New Zealand sides currently play in separate tournaments, and the champions final is the only point at which they meet.
"I'm all for it," Walker said of a permanent trans-Tasman competition. "There needs to be more integration ... it can help Australian rugby, it can help New Zealand rugby."
He was equally direct about his match-winner, who has been playing the 15-a-side game for barely five years.
"She hasn't reached half of her potential yet... she's still learning the game," Walker said of Vaha'akolo. "Her natural ability to find space and to be brave, to pull off a chip kick or get into support and score tries, she's a special talent."
Blues 24 (Tries: Viliko, Vaha'akolo 2, Roos; Cons: Sorensen-McGee 2/4) def NSW Waratahs 17 (Tries: Stewart, Ellis, Merlo; Cons: Hinds 1/3).
