For the first time in its history, the France team won in New Zealand (18-17), Saturday at the Sky Stadium in Wellington, for the first day of the WXV.
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A new competition which is off to a good start. The French, with the young Manae Feleu captain for the first time, took their revenge against the reigning world champions (18-17), Saturday October 21, at the end of a match in the high intensity WXV, and a year after their painful defeat (24-25) in the semi-finals of the World Cup.
🤩🇫🇷 𝑨̀ 𝒋𝒂𝒎𝒂𝒊𝒔 𝒍𝒆𝒔 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒆̀𝒓𝒆𝒔!
For the first time in their history, the Blues won against the Black Ferns in New Zealand! 👏#NZLFRA #XVdeFrance #NeFaisonsXV #WXV #Who dare win pic.twitter.com/jZsUAZYLd4— France Rugby (@FranceRugby) October 21, 2023
Despite a feverish start to the meeting in Wellington, the Blues stood out by being decisive during their forays into the New Zealand camp. They scored two dazzling tries (Emilie Boulard in the 5th minute, Cyrielle Banet in the 16th) in the first period. Pragmatic, they were there defensively and did not leave many opportunities for the New Zealanders to cross the blue curtain, despite a try from Liana Mikaele-Tu’u (10th).
“A super intense match”
In the last 10 minutes, the New Zealanders came back to within a small point of the Blues (18-17) thanks to a try from Katelyn Vaha’akolo (71st) while they were outnumbered following the red card from Chryss Viliko (63rd) after her head-to-head clearance of Gabrielle Vernier. But they failed to overthrow the Blues. Elected j Player of the match, Emilie Boulard was pleased with the collective performance: “It was a very intense match. It came down to nothing at the end, but we managed to hold on, which we weren’t necessarily able to do in previous matches. This victory will make this group grow .” Starting off on a very promising start, the Tricolores will play their next match of the tournament against Australia, Saturday October 28.