Paul X. Walsh

The Tackle: A Celebration of Rugby World Cup 2021

Location: Cricket Ave

As the second of three Women’s World Cup tournaments played at Eden Park across two years, Rugby World Cup 2021 (played in 2022) delivered a paradigm shift in women’s sport.

The event captured the heart of a nation, as the home team the Black Ferns, sold out the stadium for the first time ever, packing the Park with 40,000 fans. Prior to the RWC22, the largest New Zealand crowd for a women’s sporting event was 16,162.

“Imagine it in 2010, nobody knows who the Black Ferns are. Nobody knows what they look like, nobody follows women’s rugby. We were told, ‘you will never be paid’, we were told, ‘we’re not giving you Eden Park for the Rugby World Cup, we’ll give you somewhere that holds 5,000 because you’re not going to sell it out’. We were told, ‘women’s rugby doesn’t matter’ and then here we are 12 years later with a sold-out Eden Park.” – Ruby Tui, Black Ferns winger

This artwork, created by Paul X. Walsh, captures the dynamic energy of a rugby tackle. Using seven different reference images, he has depicted a jumble of women’s rugby players centred around a ball. This forceful image is sliced into a dozen diagonal strips, with each strip representing the respective team colours of the 2021 Rugby World Cup competitors: Australia, Canada, England, Fiji, France, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Scotland, the Republic of South Africa, USA and Wales.

This mural was brought to life by World Rugby, Space Between Agency and Eden Park.