OPINION: New Zealand's hosting of a Women's Rugby World Cup is long overdue.

The decision to award New Zealand the 2021 tournament ends an embarrassment for the Kiwi and international game.

There have been eight World Cups and the Black Ferns have dominated them, winning five titles.

GETTY IMAGES The Black Ferns have plenty of fans as they look to defend the World Cup on home soil.

Yet this is the first time New Zealand have actually bid to host the tournament and the first time that World Rugby have awarded the event to a country outside the northern hemisphere.

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Wales, Scotland, Canada, England, France and Ireland have all hosted the women's World Cup and rugby "heavyweights" Spain and the Netherlands have enjoyed the privilege too.

New Zealand Rugby has belatedly woken up to competing in the modern world where the demands for equality increase each day. They have made some big moves in this area internally and now they finally get the chance to showpiece the pinnacle of the women's game.

This comes against New Zealand hosting the men's tournaments in 1987 and 2011 – along with losing the rights to co-host the 2003 men's event with Australia.

The successful women's hosting decision has come with plenty of chest-thumping by New Zealand and global officials and with support from the Kiwi government.

Now we wait to see the response of the New Zealand public.

It's an international tournament but is it a national event in New Zealand terms?

The strange decision to restrict games to Whangarei and the wider Auckland area will test that.

When New Zealand won the hosting rights to the 2011 men's World Cup, the successful bid came with a cunning ploy built around the country's national fervour for rugby. This is, after all, our supposed national game.

"In the rugby world, there is simply no place like New Zealand. No greater country to tour, no better place to hold the Rugby World Cup," the great All Black Sir Colin Meads said in backing that 2011 bid.

"I know that people think we don't have the venues but I tell them New Zealand is one big rugby stadium and it's got four million people in it."

The "stadium of four million" became a catch-cry for a hugely successful tournament that swept the length and breadth of the country, buoyed by All Blacks success that eventually saw them end their long title drought.

New Zealand's population is now closer to five million yet just the far north and an Auckland area often ambivalent to sporting occasions get the pleasure of watching live matches.

The provinces have arguably a bigger appetite for this and a better system for hosting teams yet TV coverage or a costly trip north is now their lot in terms of first-hand engagement.

The incredible Black Ferns deserve this opportunity and they need a nation behind them.