Outspoken women's rugby advocate Alice Soper insists NZ Rugby must ugrade its high-performance support of the Black Ferns programme, after a damning review of the team culture.
With less than six months until their bid to defend their Rugby World Cup crown, the NZ women are coachless, after incumbent Glenn Moore stood down over the weekend, wounded by the the report into his stewardship over the programme.
Last week, the review levelled accusations of favouritism, 'ghosting' and body-shaming against Black Ferns management, sparked by veteran player Te Kura Ngata-Aerengamate, after last year's disastrous northern tour. Moore vehemently denies those claims as lacking context.
But Soper claims the national women's side have simply outgrown the part-time nature of their programme and with a home World Cup looming, it's time to invest more into the team.
"I think we've got a situation where our grown has rapidly outstripped our support systems that have been put in place," Soper told AM. "This isn't new - loud voices such as mine have been trying to raise this issue for a wee while.
"This is our moment in time to pull the stakeholders together and having these conversations about how a successful women's programme would look in New Zealand today."
The Black Ferns have previously set the pace for international women's rugby, winning five of eight previous World Cup titles and named 2017 World Rugby Team of the Year for their most recent success.
But last year's tour to England and France exposed how far New Zealand had slipped behind the rest of the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, with northern unions establishing a Six Nations women's competition to provide regular top-class opportunities.
Before Moore's resignation, NZ Rugby had named former All Blacks coach Wayne Smith - acknowledged as one of the world's sharpest rugby brains - as technical coach to support the Black Ferns, while World Cup winning coach Sir Graham Henry has also lent his expertise to the women's team.
Neither appeal as head-coaching solutions, as the Ferns try to develop their own culture.
"It's about embracing the unique and beautiful hearts of the women's game," said Soper. "I think there's a lot that women's rugby could be teaching the mainstream about how to do things.
"We could from a different background and we're a reflection of those that built us, so we have a lot more influence from our Māori and our Pasifika players around how we shape and run our rugby. I'd love to see that carried across into our top team."
With the World Cup looming, Soper expects a more professional approach to women's rugby from the national body.
"We've had a situation with hybrid contracts and now we've got a handful of fully professional, but we want all people involved in women's rugby - not just the players - to be able to make it their fulltime job.
"A lot of the issues have come from the fact that people have been given women's rugby as another responsibility on top of a long to-do list. We've got to have this dedicated resource, we've got to have a strategic plan - to have a strategic plan, we have to have the business case.
"I'm not going to pretend it's not going to cost money."
That cash investment is one of the priorities of the controversial $300m Silver Lake deal, approved by NZ Rugby and NZ Rugby Players Association, and awaiting final sign-off by provincial unions.
