NORTHAMPTON, England — The question over whether the Women’s World Cup has a one-sided score problem is a tricky one.
We’ve seen record-breaking crowds, packed fanzones and new stars born, but also a flurry of one-sided scorelines. Soon after England’s 92-3 win over Samoa, the question was posed again: What does either side truly get out of that match?
For England, it was lose-lose. Win by a cricket score and it was to be expected. Struggle to victory and there’d be an inquest. For Samoa, they shipped 14 tries and the predicted landslide score materialised.
So once the hammering came to being, what next?
For the Red Roses, this victory gave head coach John Mitchell welcome selection headaches before facing Australia on Saturday, but also ahead of the knockout stages where they are expected to be challenged for the first time.
But watching Samoa walk around the Franklin’s Gardens pitch at full-time, soaking in the applause, smiles from ear to ear, tears streaming, was to witness a group of players who’d already achieved so much in getting to the World Cup in the first place. They are a team of amateur players, several of whom had to take unpaid leave to play in this competition.
There are six mothers among their group, leaving behind their families while mum take on the best players in the world. There are property managers, teachers and traffic controllers. And then you listened as their coach Ramsey Tomokino — an IT Manager — had to pause during his post-match conference to collect his emotions as he relived the experience of watching his team get applauded off the bus when they arrived in Northampton ahead of the match.
“Our girls deserve that so much,” Tomokino said.
“So yeah, that made me a little bit emotional that because we’ve never had that, we’ve never had the opportunity to play in front of 13,000 people. That contributes to who we are.”
As coach Ramsey spoke, captain Sui Pauaraisa was also overcome with emotion. Try telling them this had no significance.
The reality is, this World Cup was always going to have a host of one-sided matches. Samoa’s theme for the week was “Mission: Impossible” in a World Cup where there are realistically only a trio of teams capable of winning the whole thing. England have won 29 on the trot. So when you have Samoa — who didn’t face a tier one opponent in the run up to the tournament — preparing to face the vastly-resources England — with 32 professional players to pick from, this is reality.
As Mitchell said in the week, “[those countries] have to start somewhere.”
The key question, however, is what happens next? Because there’s zero point in giving Samoa this taste of the World Cup and then throwing them back into the sea with the other minnows to tread water until the next global gathering ticks around.
So what this needs — for this World Cup to truly be a launchpad for the game — is further investment, more competitive fixtures, continued access to better coaches, and less self-interest.
“We have neighbouring countries that don’t want to help us out,” Tomokino said during the week.
He added after that match: “We didn’t play enough games before the World Cup and we knew that. I don’t want to take away from our girls. We know the result and I know people have been talking about, ‘is that good for the game or not?’ But you know, what’s good for the game is that we are here and we can get better.”
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So sustained attention is the way forward. The impact one-sided matches have is usually short term. These hammerings are largely a small thread in a larger tapestry of a tournament; the matches you remember for records rather than legacy.
But for those involved and on the wrong side of the scoreboard, these matches mean everything. We saw that after the match at Franklin’s Gardens. These matches are justification of effort and existence within rugby.
“World Rugby give us great support, but we need more backing and more opportunities,” Tomokino said. “We don’t get to play these days.”
But for progress, they need more days like this.
Samoa so wanted a try against England. They didn’t get that. But they did get their first points of the World Cup when Harmony Vatau slotted their second-half penalty. The non-selected players next to the press box celebrated widely, as did the pocket of Samoa family and friends in front of us.
They then cheered ever louder as Emma Sing knocked on a restart. But the try they so desperately wanted eluded them. They’ll meet England again in the future, and they’ll go for that try again.
But you hope when they do meet, we’ll see some professional players in the Samoa team. And the margin between the teams will be smaller.
That would be legacy and progress.
