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Steve Tew hails support for women's sport after New Zealand wins 2021 Rugby World Cup hosting rights

November 15, 2018

Steve Tew paid credit to the support, saying it showed where our country was in regards to women, big events as well as rugby.

New Zealand Rugby chief executive Steve Tew said the Government’s support for the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2021 bid showed “where our country is in, in regards to women’s matters, where we are in regards to running major events and also where we are as a rugby nation.”

Tew paid credit to the Government for their support, with Black Ferns legend Dr Farah Palmer keen to leverage on much of the good work that is being done by the Government for female sport.

“Minister Grant Robertson has been supportive, in fact quite demanding, I wasn’t looking forward to seeing him if we hadn’t have won,” Tew said.

“We had a personal message from the prime minister who would have actually liked to have been here.”

“I think her message today was very important, very personal and an invitation to come back to New Zealand just reinforced where our country is in regards to women’s matters, where we are in regards to running major events and also where we are as a rugby nation.”

“There’s lot’s going on in New Zealand, there’s the international women’s group on women in sport, there’s the Government that’s just released its strategy on women and girls in sport,” Dr Palmer said.

“There’s lots going on so we’re going to be leveraging off that for developing rugby.”

Asked about a hypothetical final between the Black Ferns and England at a sold-out Eden Park, Dr Palmer said she would probably laugh and cry her way through it as she had done for the 2011 Rugby World Cup final.

“I’ve got a six-year-old daughter, I’m really looking forward to her seeing the best of these female rugby players on our home turf in Aotearoa and that’s what drives me now.”

The final of the tournament is likely to be at Eden Park, with a Pacific Nations tournament to run simultaneous to develop the game in the Pacific.

“We do believe that will be a great opportunity because we feel that’s an untapped potential, they’re (the Pacific nations) not often in the World Cup so it will be a great opportunity for them to develop.”

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