The Black Ferns completed an impressive start to Whitney Hansen’s tenure as coach by thumping the Wallaroos 40-5 on the Sunshine Coast on Saturday to defend their Pacific Four series title.

New Zealand scored six tries to one, including a double to winger Ayesha Leti-I’iga, to stretch their unbeaten record over Australia to 30 wins and retain the O’Reilly Cup .

The result also completed a clean sweep of the four-nation tournament following earlier emphatic wins over the United States and Canada in North America.

It was an uplifting set of performances under new coach Hansen, who replaced Allan Bunting after the Black Ferns failed to reach the final at last year’s World Cup.

They again unveiled some sharp attacking skills, despite some heavy rain in Queensland, to break through the defence of Australia, who lost all three of their matches in the tournament and have never beaten the Black Ferns.

"Look, despite the score, despite the 30 wins in a row, that was actually a really hard game out there," Black…