Discipline is going to be the key that will give the New Zealand women's rugby team the edge to lift their performance and clinch a fifth Rugby World Cup in Ireland
The Black Ferns takes a squad selfie at their last practice in Auckland before flying to Ireland for the 2017 Rugby World Cup. Photo: RNZ
The Black Fern squad ended their last training session in Auckland on Tuesday with a squad selfie before they flew out to Dublin.
Prop, Toka Natua said taking the selfie was becoming a tradition for the players who had bonded well during their training.
Natua was no stranger to the black jersey with 11 caps to her name, but she had never played in a World Cup before.
She said she would be concentrating on improving every minute she was on the pitch in Ireland and was determined to ignore distractions and get on with the job she had been given.
"Just make sure I do my job well, not necessarily worrying about everyone else. Just focusing on my own and making sure I'm in the right on the field."
The team are hoping to erase the embarrassment of the 2014 campaign where they failed to make it out of the pool stage.
Loose forward, Linda Itunu was part of that team and was determined to make amends for that performance.
The recent loss against tournament favourites England in Rotorua in June had strengthened Itunu's resolve to improve ahead of the World Cup.
"I think the lessons that we learnt from that match is that we've got to do our homework. We didn't underestimate England, we just got outplayed."
"We've gone away and we've done our homework and we've worked on those areas and going into this World Cup you're going to see a different team than what you saw in that June series," she said.
Black Ferns Toka Natua and Linda Ituna at the last training before heading to the Rugby World Cup in Ireland Photo: RNZ
Head Coach, Glenn Moore agreed that the June series showed up some poor discipline on the pitch that needed to be addressed.
Penalties and yellow cards were given away too cheaply against a team that capitalised on any weakness.
"We had Chris Pollock, the referee, come in an do a presentation for us about some of his findings looking through the footage."
"Then we trained some of those things out on the field. So we've done a lot of work behind the scenes to fine tune what we've been doing."
Moore was not worried about meeting England again in the competition, but he was subscribing to the old addage of taking each game as it game and not planning too far ahead.
The Black Fern's first game is against Wales in Dublin next week.
