Free entry, club ground, hat-trick debutant: the Black Ferns in Upper Hutt

Here is a thing worth celebrating on its own terms, before we even get to the rugby: the Black Ferns played at Maidstone Park in Upper Hutt, on a club ground, and it was free to get in.

Not a stadium. Not a ticket price that makes a family think twice. A local park, the national team, and anyone who wanted to walk up.

The rugby was worth the walk too. The Black Ferns beat the Black Ferns XV 62-19 on Friday 14 August in a hit-out ahead of a huge Test season. It was not a capped Test, so nobody adds a cap to their name, but for a handful of players it was the most important eighty minutes of their year.

Three on debut

Elinor-Plum King scored a hat-trick on debut. That is one way to answer the selectors.

Ayesha Leti-I'iga scored twice, and Maia Joseph and Tara Turner also crossed. Amarante Sititi and Shyrah Tuliau-Tua'a also made their first appearances in the jersey, and Arene Landon-Lane of Northern United played first-five for the Black Ferns XV.

The scoreline says the senior side had too much, which you would expect. What the coaches were watching for is who looked like they belonged. On the evidence of Friday, at least a few of them did.

The season they are warming up for

This was a warm-up for something genuinely enormous. The Black Ferns have eleven Tests in 2026, their biggest schedule ever.

They have already won the Pacific Four Series with three wins from three, beating the USA 48-15, Canada 36-14 and Australia 40-5, and they retained the Laurie O'Reilly Cup on Anzac Day.

What is left is a serious tour:

• Saturday 22 August, Australia at Go Media Stadium Mt Smart, Auckland
• 5 September, South Africa in Johannesburg, the Springbok Women's first home Test against the Black Ferns
• 12 September, France in Lyon
• 19 September, Scotland in Edinburgh
• 26 September, England in London
• Then a three-Test home series against France in October, in Hamilton, Whangārei and Christchurch

Head coach Whitney Hansen named a 31-player end-of-year squad with five uncapped players in it. They are without co-captain Kennedy Tukuafu, who is out for around six months after hamstring surgery, with Alana Bremner and Ruahei Demant leading in her absence.

The bit that matters to us

A national team playing at a club ground with free entry is the sort of thing that makes a kid decide to play. Some of the children at Maidstone Park on Friday will have stood two metres from a player who scored a hat-trick on debut.

That is worth more than most marketing budgets. More of it, please.