Here's your sign: Tune in to the Rugby World Cup tonight

It’s Rugby World Cup finals this weekend and I couldn’t be more excited.

On 28th September at 4am (NZ time), England and Canada will take the field to see who will be crowned the 2025 champion.

A few hours earlier at 11.30pm on 27th September (also NZ time), the Black Ferns will play France for the bronze medal.

I said to my fiance yesterday: “Do you think I should stay up, watch the Black Ferns, get a couple of hours sleep, then get up to watch the final? Or should I just stay up the whole night?”

His eyebrows raised at the latter part of the question: “That’s not something I’ve ever heard you consider before.”

He’s not wrong. I don’t know that I’ve ever pulled an all nighter, even when I was a university student. But he knows that for rugby, I’d do it.

For the last month, the World Cup has been one of the only things on my mind. I’ve loved having the opportunity to not just watch the Black Ferns, but also as many of the other teams as I possibly could (thanks Sky Sport for recording the games!)

I’d also add the refs to that; I’ve enjoyed seeing their different styles, how they interact with the players and how they take the time to explain their decisions on the field.

With my social media channels filled with rugby content, I’ve also felt like I got to know more about the players, their personalities and their antics while at the tournament in England.

It’s been refreshing, fun and wholly new way of engaging and connecting with rugby and has really brought the World Cup to life.

It’s made me wish I could be there in England to be part of the crowds, to feel and be part of the energy and community myself.

While social media has been great at connecting fans like me, it’s also clear that the players, teams, rugby organisations, freelance journalists and content creators have been doing a lot of heavy lifting.

These accounts are just some of the ones I follow to get an insight to the tournament both on and off the pitch and have lots of fun along the way: the Black Ferns or any of the players, the Rugby World Cup account, Alice Soper or Louis or Ashleigh Davis.

There’s been lots of discussion about the lack of news coverage for the Black Ferns, and of the World Cup itself. The Spinoff editor Madeleine Chapman does an excellent job of summing up all of the different facets that have contributed to this situation – if you haven’t seen it, you can read it here.

As a journalist, a former rugby player and a human it makes me sad that this is still a conversation we need to have in 2025.

It makes me even sadder when some of the meagre coverage there is becomes actively disparaging towards the players themselves. I read two articles earlier in the week that among other things, criticised the Black Ferns’ “arrogance”, saying they failed to live up to their own hype after losing the semifinal (it makes me mad just to repeat these sentences).

Those pieces have been on my mind ever since. The claims made are wholly unfounded when nothing I’ve seen from the World Cup from any team has been remotely arrogant.

The hype? Is self-generated because the media isn’t doing it for them. It is well deserved and if anything, they should have more.

It’s taken me the better part of the week to slowly work through my anger since reading those articles and realise that the most important thing the country can do this weekend is to ignore nonsense like that and still show up for our team when they play for bronze tonight.

While I am, of course, disappointed not to see the Black Ferns in the final, they played their hearts out in that match against Canada. Unfortunately for us, Canada was the better team. The saying “you can’t win them all” is a saying for a reason, and anyone who has ever played sport will tell you that’s true.

So, if you weren’t already planning on it, this is your sign to watch the match tonight (or delayed tomorrow if 11.30pm is too late!)

Our team deserves our attention so let’s give it to them.

PS: If you can, also tune in to the final between Canada and England, I'm sure it's going to be one hell of a match.

PPS: Here is an excellent explainer from Soper to get you up to speed quick on the World Cup (note: it was written before the tournament started but still has everything you need to know).